LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



Shelf— i^Sf 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



A SHORT HISTORY OF 



5§|f (JIjrisMHii ti(npr(. 



SIX SERMONS 

PREACHED IN ST. PAUL'S CHURCH, NEWBURYPORT, MASS. 



BY THE 



Rev. J. H. Van Buren. 



" Endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body, and one 
Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one 
God and Father of all." — Eph. TV: 3-6. 




NEW YORK : JAMES POTT & COMPANY. 

NEWBURYPORT, MASS.: GEO. H. PEARSON. 

1886. 



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Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1886, by 

JAMES H. VAN BUREN, 
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 



PKINTED AND BOUND BY 

THE CLAREMONT MANUFACTURING CO., 

CLAREMONT, N. H. 



®0 

5L Venerable priest 

in tl)£ (Eljttrcf) of <&>ob, 

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ant 3ibnntant labours in % Gospel, 

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10, bt) permission, 
tilespertfullt) JDeoicateo. 



INTRODUCTION. 



These sermons are published at the request of many who 
heard them when they were preached. It is hoped that they 
may prove useful in suggesting a deeper study of the topics 
they outline. For there is need to-day of a positive Church- 
manship, based upon principle ; and not merely the result of 
a gratified aesthetic perception, or of release from outworn 
systems of human device. 

That so large a proportion of the serious and reflective el- 
ement among the people of the United States are turning 
away from sensational claptrap and secular topics, which in 
many quarters take the place of the pure Gospel of Jesus 
Christ, is a fact to inspire devout thanksgiving. Attracted 
by the reverence and decorum of the Prayer Book, the daily 
accessions to our parishes, indicate in what direction religious 
thought is tending. Official figures show that in 1875, the 
number of our communicants was 280,000. In 1885, it had 
reached 398,098 — an increase of 42 per cent.\ whereas the in- 
crease of population in the United States during the same 
decade was estimated at only 25 per cent. But the increase 
in parishioners, regularly enrolled or semi-detached, during 
the same period, has far exceeded that of the communicants. 
How far cannot be told, as statistics are not reported. Among 
these people vestiges of former prejudice, misconstruction and 
misinformation need to be removed, that the way may be 
opened to those highest blessings which the Church has to 



6 INTRODUCTION. 

offer to all sorts and conditions of men ; in the ways of Con- 
firmation and Holy Communion. In the spirit of a sincere 
desire to serve this end, and with a deepening sense of the 
responsibility resting upon us, to tell abroad what things the 
Lord hath done for us, and for our fathers, this course of ser- 
mons was undertaken. Where topics have been touched with 
enforced brevity, needful references will point to fuller infor- 
mation. The bitter spirit of controversy has no place in these 
pages. 

J. H. V. B, 
March, 1886. 



I. 



THE FOUNDATION OF APOSTLES AND 
PROPHETS. 



" Ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens 
with the saints, and of the household of God; and are built 
upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ 
himself being the chief corner stoite." — Ephes. ii : 19, 20. 

The history of the Christian Church deservedly claims a 
place in the foremost rank of important studies. Many re- 
ligious questions that perplex the minds of our people would 
be seen in their true relations, did they consider them in their 
historical aspect. Many customs and appliances would be 
better appreciated if their history were more generally under- 
stood. A better charity is always begotten of a fuller knowl- 
edge of that truth in which charity rejoiceth. A deeper con- 
fidence in the verities of our most holy faith ever follows the 
learning which explores the territory of conquest which has 
been won in fulfilment of the words : "This is the victory 
that overcometh the world, even your faith." 

Not long ago I was permitted to examine before you in a 
course of sermons, the Foundations of the Faith. The atten- 
tion and interest which you evinced in that study and the 
many kind expressions of appreciation which I was so thank- 
ful to hear, have emboldened me to think that a similar series 
having the Christian Church for its theme might be equally 



8 THE FOUNDATION OF 

serviceable. In the nature of the case, I must, now, as then, 
repeat some things which are well known to many of you. I 
hope I may also have the good fortune to tell you some things 
which have escaped your attention. 

It shall be my endeavour to tell "a plain unvarnished tale," 
to indulge in no theories., to avoid speculations, to withhold 
no fact of importance to the story, so far as truth may be rec- 
onciled with brevity. I shall not shrink from laying bare the 
deformity that has marred the record of some who were chil- 
dren of the Church. There will be pages I shall be sorry to 
read but none that I shall be afraid to open. We shall look 
upon phases of Christian History when lethargy seemed to 
have laid hold upon the very life of the Church. We shall 
trace the origin of sect and division, in no spirit of conten- 
tious pride or bigotry ; but taking shame and sorrow to our- 
selves where they are due, for the occasion that gave them 
excuse. We shall come, I trust, to a more perfect understand- 
ing of the work the Christian Church still has to do, and a 
more intelligent use of that part of the Creed wherein we say, 
"I believe .... in the Holy Catholic Church." 

The subject for this morning, is the Foundation of Apos- 
tles and Prophets, or the Church in the Bible Age. And here 
let me beg you to avoid that notion which I fear is toe widely 
prevalent, that there is no connection between the Jewish and 
the Christian Church. Many people seem to think that God 
was trying an experiment in the Jewish dispensation and 
found it did not work. That is the Gospel according to In- 
gersoll but not according to St. Paul, who declares that " the 
law was our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ." Not with- 
out deep significance does he link together in the text I have 
chosen, the words "apostles and prophets:" telling the Eph- 



APOSTLES AND PROPHETS. 9 

esian Christians that they are built upon the one foundation 
of them both. I have even heard people say that they had 
almost entirely given up reading the Old Testament, because 
they felt that most of it did not concern them. Such people 
never understand the Christian Church. For though it is 
written, "Old things are passed away; behold, all things are 
become new," yet, did not the Master say, also, " I am come 
not to destroy the works of the law, but to fulfil" ? God made 
no vain experiment in the Jewish Church. He did not bring 
in the Christian Church because that one was a failure. The 
very thought is revolting if not profane. The way for the 
new was prepared by the old, and principles that were en- 
shrined there, bloomed as plants removed from the nursery 
and set in the wide field to enjoy the sunshine and cope with 
the storm. The Gospel adds no new commandment, but it 
summarizes the ten in the new form of two. The first and 
great commandment "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God," is 
the first four in shorter yet more comprehensive form, the 
second which is like unto it, " Thou shalt love thy neighbour," 
was "writ large" in the last six. The Christian Church is 
the larger development of the Jewish. Its enemies at the first 
considered it as nothing but a Jewish sect. Said the Roman 
Jews who came to visit St. Paul when he was a prisoner, 
" We desire to hear of thee what thou thinkest, for as concern- 
ing this sect, we know that everywhere it is spoken against." 
Not only did our Lord Himself attend the worship and obev 
the ordinances of the Temple when He was in Jerusalem, and 
join in the forms prescribed for the synagogue when else- 
where, but His disciples also for a long time did the same. 
Corruptions had crept into the Jewish Church, it is very true, 
and our Saviour condemned them ; but the Church itself was 



IO THE FOUNDATION OF 

pure in its standards. Simeon was not corrupt, neither was 
Anna, nor Nathanael, "an Israelite indeed in whom was no 
guile." And so the transition from Jewish to Christian was 
not abrupt, it was gradual. Much that was fit to survive, 
passed into the new dispensation. Baptism was not new ; 
sacrifice kept its spiritual part and laid aside only its outward 
shell ; the Holy Communion was instituted in the very ele- 
ments of the Paschal Supper, and sin offering was consum- 
mated in the one, full, perfect and sufficient sacrifice, oblation 
and satisfaction, that was offered on Calvary. 

" There remaineth no more sacrifice for sin," while there 
do remain spiritual sacrifices to be offered up by the royal 
priesthood of all Christian believers. The idea of a chosen 
people was not obliterated, it was so deepened and expanded, 
that an Apostle finds inspiration guiding him to say to 
Christians " Ye are the temple of the living God, as God 
hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them and I will 
be their God, and they shall be my people. Wherefore come 
out from among them and be ye separate, saith the Lord." 
Both the Old Testament and the Jewish Church must be un- 
derstood in order to an understanding of the New Testament 
and of the Christian Church. The foundation of apostles is 
never perfectly held, except when it is understood to embrace 
the foundation of prophets also. 

A brief sketch of the Jewish Church will open the way to 
an intelligent pursuit of that study which we have set before 
us. Says Dean Stanley in the preface to his lectures on this 
subject, "The History of the Jewish Church, is divided into 
three great periods : each subdivided into lesser portions ; 
each with its own peculiar characteristics ; each terminated 
by a single catastrophe. 



APOSTLES AND PROPHETS. II 

" The first commences, properly speaking, with the Exodus ; 
and then, passing through the stages of the Desert, the Con- 
quest, and the settlement in Palestine, ends with the destruc- 
tion of the Sanctuary at Shiloh, and the new institution of 
the Monarchy. Its great characters are Abraham, Moses 
and Samuel." This, he says, "embraces the first Revelation 
of the Mosaic Religion and the first foundation of the Jewish 
Church and Commonwealth. 

" The second period covers the whole history of the Mon- 
archy. It includes the Empire of David and Solomon ; and 
then dividing itself into the two separate streams of the North- 
ern and Southern kingdoms, terminates in the overthrow of 
Jerusalem and the Temple by the Chaldean armies. It com- 
prehends the great development of the Jewish Church and 
Religion through the growth of the Prophetic Order and the 
first establishment of the Jewish Commonwealth as a fixed 
institution. It is marked by the rise and fall of the tribe of 
Judah. The third period begins with the captivity. It includes 
the Exile, the Return, and the successive periods of Persian, 
Grecian, and Roman Dominion." Out of this period, he adds, 
grew "the last and greatest development of the Prophetic 
Spirit, out of which grew the Christian Church, and, the con- 
sequent expansion of the Jewish Religion into a higher relig- 
ion ; whilst at the same time the dissolution of the existing 
Church and Commonwealth of Judea was brought about by 
the destruction of Jerusalem and of the Temple in the war of 
Titus, and by the final extinction of the national independ- 
ence, in the war of Hadrian." 

I have quoted these words of the late Dean of Westminster 
not only for the clear language in which they sum up the en- 
tire history from the Exodus to the Pentecostal Birthday of 



12 THE FOUNDATION OF 

the Christian Church, but also because they furnish a most 
convenient and orderly presentation of the grand subject of 
the Jewish Church itself, in a method most easily remem- 
bered. Please bear in mind this threefold division, and the 
Old Testament will be very much more clear to you as you 
understand to which period its writings belong. There are the 
writings which refer to events before the Exodus, and then 
come the three great periods of the History of the Jewish 
Church viz.: From the Exodus in the days of Moses to the 
Monarchy in the days of Samuel. From the Monarchy to 
the Babylonish Exile, and from the Exile to Christ. 

Now through all these ages, the Jewish Church had an 
identity. It could always be discerned. The ten tribes of 
the north lapsed into idolatry and you will find the story of 
it in the books of the Kings, and in the twelve Minor Proph- 
ets, beginning with Hosea. The writings of Isaiah and Jere- 
miah also are burdened with it. Judah and Benjamin kept 
the true worship, not perfectly indeed, but with many a tra- 
dition overlying the truth, begotten of the dreary formalism 
of Scribes and Pharisees. Still that part of the nation called 
Judah did not fall into idolatry, and we can see very clearly 
what was the nature of the Jewish Church. Look at what- 
ever age of that Church you please, as the nation passed from 
one condition to another you will always find four dominant 
ideas pervading its whole fabric, viz., these : (a) The Oneness 
of God in distinction from the many gods of the heathen. 

(b) The idea of Sacrifice as a means of communion with God. 

(c) A divinely appointed Priesthood to represent the ideal 
holiness of the nation and to offer sacrifice as their represen- 
tatives, and (d) The onlooking toward a Future in which they 
were to conquer all other nations, under the leadership of One 



APOSTLES AND PROPHETS. 1 3 

whom they called the Messiah. These four things are always 
present in the varying history and fortunes of the Jewish 
Church. As time went on, Prophets appeared and sacred 
books were multiplied. Armies were organized, and cities 
built, a throne was erected, and a nation formed, battles were 
fought and won or lost, part of the nation became idolaters ; 
but, all along, these four things belonging to the very nature 
of the Jewish Church are plainly visible : The worship of one 
God, the system of Sacrifice, the office of the Ministry, and 
the expectation of Messiah. 

The sweep of centuries transformed the tribal and nomad- 
ic people into a settled commonwealth ; the commonwealth 
became a kingdom ; the tent or Tabernacle gave place to one 
majestic Temple, with splendid ritual and elaborate ceremonial, 
its minutest details ordered by Divine direction. High Priest, 
Priest and Levite, each as an order in the threefold ministry, 
had his official station and duty. A Synagogue was built in 
later days, in every considerable town, modelled after the one 
great Temple both in architecture and in ritual. But always 
these four things were the predominant features of the Jew- 
ish Church. Whatever might be the variations in outward 
form, they remained unchanged, wherever the Jews were true 
to their own religion. 

Without entering minutely at present into the features of 
the regular worship and discipline in Temple and in Syna- 
gogue, it will be sufficient to point out a fact to which we 
shall return later on, viz : that the Jewish worship was litur- 
gical, after a prescribed order. To that prescribed order our 
Saviour conformed and upon it the worship of the Christian 
Church was afterward framed. The forms of prayer in use 
in the Synagogues were the means of worship to which Christ 



14 THE FOUNDATION OF 

was accustomed, as is abundantly manifest from frequent ref- 
erences in the New Testament. The Synagogue had its an- 
nual round of festivals and fasts, its weekly Sabbath, its- spe- 
cial offices, its appointed hours of prayer, and its attitudes of 
devotion. It had its regular table of lessons from the Law 
and the Prophets, its Hymnal was the Book of Psalms. Its 
Creed was the Shema, composed of three passages from the 
Old Testament beginning "Hear O Israel : The Lord our God 
is one Lord." It was called the Shema from the Hebrew 
word meaning " Hear," which began it. It had its sermon 
for teaching, and its benedictions. Such in its principal fea- 
tures was the public worship to which our Saviour lent the 
sanction of His own observance. We shall revert to this 
point when we come to consider how the Book of Common 
Prayer grew out of the Synagogue worship. 

Passing on now from the foundation of prophets to the 
foundation of apostles we must briefly touch upon the Gospel 
which the Christian Church has to proclaim. That Gospel 
is the history of the Life and Teaching of Jesus Christ from 
His Advent to His Ascension, together with the doctrines 
which logically grow out of that History. The facts and the 
doctrines of the Gospel, together with the two institutions of 
Baptism and Holy Communion, our Lord's own appointment, 
we find to be the treasure committed to the Christian Church. 
And from the very outset we find four predominant features 
by which the Christian Church is to be distinguished. Four 
features marked the Jewish Church, four also mark the Chris- 
tian ; for we, read in the second chapter of the Acts of the 
Apostles, that "they continued steadfastly in the Apostles' 
doctrine, and fellowship, and in breaking of bread and 
in [the] prayers." x Here were reproduced in fullness the 



APOSTLES AND PROPHETS. 15 

features of the elder Church. Here was preserved the iden- 
tity of the foundation of apostles and prophets. As time 
went by, the life of Jesus Christ was written, and the Chris- 
tian Church added to the Old Testament the four accounts 
of the one Gospel, together with epistles in which the doc- 
trines of the Christian religion were stated by those whom 
our Saviour had appointed to proclaim that Gospel. But we 
must never forget that the Christian Church was founded long 
before a word of the New Testament was written. Accord- 
ingly, we look, in the New Testament, to find the history of 
things already begun, and not to find directions of things yet 
to be done. We look not to find commandments about the 
foundation of the Church, but to find the account of that 
foundation which had been already laid. 

And thus in the beginning it is plain that the Church was 
not Episcopal, neither was it Presbyterian, nor yet Congre- 
gational, nor Methodist, nor Baptist, nor Quaker, nor Unita- 
rian. What then was it ? It was Apostolic. The little 
company of eleven apostles added one to their number after 
the apostacy of Judas, and restored the original number of 
twelve ; the number of the twelve tribes of God's ancient 
people, and waited for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. It 
came; and they began, under that inspiration, to build up the 
apostolic Church in the one apostolic faith of the gospel. 
Their appointment as ambassadors for Christ did not come 
from the people, it came from Christ. Their commission 
came not from below but from above. Gradually as the 
numbers of disciples increased, new officers appeared, in- 
creasing the number of apostles. Their original purpose 
was to be witnesses to the people of the Resurrection of our 
Lord ; but, by divine appointment, Saul was added to the 



l6 THE FOUNDATION OF 

number, who was not an eye-witness of the Resurrection ; 
at least not as the others were. 

Barnabas was likewise ordained an apostle, showing that 
there were some duties belonging to the apostolic office which 
were not to be confined to the twelve. An emergency arose 
in the distribution of alms ; the apostles were ready for it. 
"Look ye out seven men," said they, "of honest report 
whom we may appoint over this business." Upon these 
seven the apostles laid their hands and thus arose the order 
now known as deacons. These deacons could preach and 
baptize, both of which things they did ; but there were other 
offices which they could not perform ; as for example, when 
Philip, one of the seven, went down to Samaria and preached, 2 
they who believed were baptized ; but Philip could take 
them no farther, and so we read that "when the apostles which 
were at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the word 
of God, they sent unto them Peter and John, and they laid 
their hands on them and they received the Holy Ghost." 
The same thing happened at Ephesus. That was Confirma- 
tion. By and bye we find mention of presbyters or elders, 
with no record of their first appointment, and after that we 
read that the apostles ordained elders in every city. These 
elders were also called bishops, or overseers, as well as pres- 
byters, (the Greek word presbyter, is the same as elder,) and 
thus we find in the New Testament these three orders in the 
Christian ministry, (i) Apostles, (2) Bishops or elders or pres- 
byters, and (3) Deacons. The old ordering of the Jewish 
ministry was reproduced. High Priest, Priest, and Levite 
found their fulfilment in Apostle, Bishop or Presbyter, and 
Deacon. It is not for me to say whether this was right or 
wrong. I am here to tell you the facts. These three offices 



APOSTLES AND PROPHETS. 1 7 

were distinct in some functions, in others they were identi- 
cal. All were engaged in preaching and baptizing, but not 
all in ordaining, or in governing the various congregations. 
Miraculous gifts were gradually withdrawn, but certain func- 
tions remained. Apostles and Bishops or Presbyters united 
in ordaining to the office of the ministry, an act in which no 
Deacon is said to have taken part. The care of a particular 
parish Or church was entrusted to a bishop or presbyter, who 
is called also (in Revelation) the angel of that church, and 
usually included the entire Christian community, not a 
large number, in each city or town. Deacons were joined 
with the Bishop or Presbyter in his parochial work, and the 
Apostles had care over all the parishes or churches. As 
time passed on, the original order was modified and the title 
of Apostle was confined to those who were so called in the 
New Testament. As in the Jewish Church there were 
prophets and teachers, so we read that there were the same in 
the early Christian Church, but these did not continue, or form, 
in either case, a separate order in the ministry. They served 
an end in time of critical emergency and were not perpet- 
uated. We shall see in the next sermon how the sub-apos- 
tolic age modified the form while it kept the substance of the 
Church ; adapting it as was done in Jewish times to the 
needs of the day. But through all the ages of the Christian 
Church the four things which distinguished that Church at 
the first are always to be found ; they ran like a golden 
thread through all her history, no place can be found where 
the thread is broken : no age in which there cannot be found 
the apostles' doctrine and fellowship, the breaking of the 
bread, and the prayers. 

True, we shall often find places where sin abounds. Often 



1 8 THE SUB-APOSTOLIC AGE, AND 

we shall find the trappings and ceremonial of a corrupt and 
idolatrous practice stealing in and obscuring the true and 
primitive purity just as was the case in the history of the 
Jewish Church ; but we shall see the golden thread with its 
fourfold witness gleaming again and again when the impuri- 
ties are rolled away. And these four things are in the world 
to-day, kept by the Christian Church from age to age ; — the 
Christian Bible, the Christian Ministry, the Christian Com- 
munion and the Christian Liturgy; — the apostles' doctrine 
and fellowship, the breaking of the bread and the prayers. 
Having these four things we are certified that we have a 
right to take those inspired words to ourselves, in this far off 
century, and to be sure that we also "are no more strangers 
and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and of the 
household of God, and are built upon the foundation of 
apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief 
corner stone." 



II. 

THE SUB-APOSTOLIC AGE, AND THE TEN 
GREAT PERSECUTIONS. 



"Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted and shall kill 
you : and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name's sake.— 
St. Matt, xxiv : 9.. 

The time covered by the New Testament writings had not 
elapsed before these terrible predictions began to be fulfilled. 



THE TEN GREAT PERSECUTIONS. 1 9 

We can see the spirit of persecution beginning to oppress 
the infant Church at Jerusalem, its birth-place, as though the 
Church were to be strangled before it had strength to defend 
itself. "The priests and the captain of the temple and .the 
Saducees came upon them, being grieved that they taught the 
people." " Herod the King stretched forth his hands to vex 
certain of the church, and he killed James the brother of 
John with the sword," and put Peter in prison "and delivered 
him to four quarternions of soldiers to keep him." " Un- 
believing Jews stirred up the Gentiles" at Iconium, "and 
made their minds evil affected at the brethren." At Athens, 
they cried out, "These that have turned the world upside 
down are come hither also." These passages and others 
like them are familiar to every reader of the book of the 
Acts of the Apostles. 

But notwithstanding, the number of believers increased, 
and churches were multiplied, so that when the time that is 
included in the New Testament Scriptures had ended, we 
find churches in the following places, Jerusalem, Antioch, 
Ephesus, Corinth, Smyrna, Pergamos, Thyatira, Sardis, Phil- 
adelphia, Laodicea, Philippi, Colosse, Cenchrea, Rome, Thessa- 
lonica, besides the other churches of Galatia, of Syria and 
Cilicia where St. Paul "went confirming the churches," 
Crete, probably also in Cyprus, Cyrene, Lystra, Derbe, Ico- 
nium, and Cesarea, with indications of still others. These 
all had one religion, one common gospel. And we are told 
that the apostles as they went through the cities, "delivered 
them the decrees for to keep, that were ordained of the 
apostles and elders which were at Jerusalem, and so were the 
churches established in the faith, and increased in number 
daily." * 



20 THE SUB-APOSTOLIC AGE, AND 

We read also that the apostles "ordained them elders in 
every church," 4 and St. Paul writes to Titus, "For this cause 
left I thee in Crete, that thou shouldst set in order the things 
that are wanting and ordain elders in every city, as I had ap- 
pointed thee :" 5 adding these .words: "if any be blameless, 
the husband of one wife, having faithful children not accused 
of riot or unruly. For a bishop must be blameless as the 
steward of God." In the opening verse of the Epistle to 
the Philippians we find these words: "Paul and Timotheus, 
the servants of Jesus Christ, to all the saints in Christ Jesus 
which are at Philippi, with the bishops and deacons." And 
again the Spirit of the Lord addresses, through St. John in 
the Revelation, those who were in charge of individual 
churches and calls them the "Angels" of those churches. 
The word angel means simply "messenger." Accordingly 
we find that all these apostolic churches were under the di- 
rection of elders, called also bishops, or angels, or presbyters; 
that is to say, they had one and the same form of govern- 
ment. 

We are now to leave behind the apostolic days, and take 
up the history of the Christian Church during the sub- 
apostolic age, giving some account of what are commonly 
called the "Ten Great Persecutions." But first it may be 
necessary to say that as the word Bishop is from the Greek, 
"Episcopos," therefore, when we speak of a church as being 
Episcopal we mean simply that it is under the government 
of Bishops. And as was pointed out last Sunday, the 
Church at the first was not Episcopal but Apostolic. We are 
not to make any theories here, but to tell the history sincerely, 
and just as we find it; neither distorting the facts, nor col- 
ouring the record; neither biased by prejudice nor influenced 



THE TEN GREAT PERSECUTIONS. 21 

by feeling. The first writer in sub-apostolic times to whom 
I shall refer is Clement of Rome. He wrote the epistle 
from which I shall quote, about the year 95. The term sub- 
apostolic is preferred to post-apostolic because it means near- 
est or next to the apostolic times, whereas " post-apostolic," 
may mean any time after the apostles. I take the sub-apos- 
tolic age to mean from the times of the Twelve to the First 
General Council at Nicaea, in 325 A. D. 

St. John, the " beloved disciple," lived until about 100, A. D. 
Nearly one third of the history of the first three centu- 
ries of the Church occurred during his lifetime. Starting 
with all these apostolic churches, just as they were when St. 
John was yet living, each under the rule of a Bishop, or 
Presbyter, or Angel, what does Clement say ? The epistle is 
full of exhortations to unity, humility, patience, faithfulness, 
and diligence. It was a time as we know, of suffering, and 
the exhortations are enforced by scriptural quotations in great 
number. The following words will be of interest as showing 
how in the year 95 the Church was constituted, all the Twelve 
having died but St. John. Clement says : "The apostles re- 
ceived the gospel for us from the Lord Jesus Christ. ... So 
preaching everywhere in country and town, they appointed 
their first-fruits ; when they had proved them by the Spirit, 
to be bishops and deacons." "And our apostles knew 
through our Lord Jesus Christ that there would be strife over 
the name of the bishop's office. For this cause therefore, 
having received complete foreknowledge, they appointed the 
aforesaid persons, and afterward they provided a continuance 
[gave instructions] that if these should fall asleep, other ap- 
proved men should succeed to their ministration." "Blessed 
are those Presbyters who have gone, before,, seeing that, their 



22 THE SUB-APOSTOLIC AGE, AND 

departure was fruitful and ripe." Clement is writing to the 
church at Corinth and we find him using the following en. 
treaties against such divisions as we know had already begun 
to appear in the Corinthian church ; "Take up the epistle of 
the blessed Paul the Apostle," he says : "What wrote he 
first unto you in the beginning of the gospel ? Of a truth 
he charged you in the Spirit concerning himself and Cephas 
and Apollos, because that even then ye had made parties. 
Yet that making of parties brought less sin upon you ; for 
ye were partisans of apostles that were highly reputed, and 
of a man highly reputed in their sight. It is shameful, 
dearly beloved, yes, utterly shameful, and unworthy of your 
conduct in Christ, that it should be reported that the very 
steadfast and ancient church of the Corinthians, for the sake 
of one or two persons maketh sedition against its presbyters. 
And this report hath reached not only us, but them also 
which differ from us, so that ye even heap blasphemies on 
the name of the Lord by reason of your folly, and moreover 
create peril for yourselves." I shall make but one more 
quotation from this writer and then pass on to a later one. 
"We ought to do all things," he says, "in order, as many as 
the Master hath commanded us to perform at their appointed 
seasons. Now the offerings and ministrations he commanded 
to be performed with care, and not to be done rashly or in 
disorder, but at fixed times and seasons. They therefore 
that make their offerings at the appointed seasons are ac- 
ceptable and blessed ; for while they follow the institutions of 
the Master they cannot go wrong." 

It may be asked at this point, what those institutions were ? 
The only answer that can be given is that found in the book 
of the Acts, "the apostles' doctrine, and fellowship, the 



THE TEN GREAT PERSECUTIONS. 23 . 

breaking of bread, and [the] prayers." The " offerings " must 
have been spiritual and material. 

The next writer to whom I ask your attention is Pliny the 
younger ; but first I must ask you to remember again in 
what troublesome times the Christians of those early days 
were living. A period of persecution was that in which the 
sun went down on the life of St. Paul, in the days of Nero 
the Emperor, about the year 65. From that time to the 
year 95 was a time of rest. Then came the second of the 
" Ten Great Persecutions " as they are commonly called, 
under the Emperor Domitian. It was then that St. John 
was banished to the island of Patmos where he wrote the 
book of the Revelation. Eight years of peace ensued. 
When that was over Trajan came to the throne and from 104 
to 1 17 persecution for the third time prevailed. Pliny was 
Trajan's nephew and we shall read some extracts from his 
letters to the Emperor, written when he was proconsul of 
Pontus and Bithynia. The fourth persecution followed an- 
other interval of rest and was in the reign of Hadrian, 125 
A. D. Marcus Aurelius who reigned from 161 to 180, perse- 
cuted ; and this made the fifth persecution. Polycarp, Bishop 
of Smyrna, was slain at that time. Again peace lasted for 
20 years, after which Severus persecuted the Church, espe- 
cially in Africa, from 200 to 211. This was the sixth. 
After another interval of rest the seventh persecution 
came, in the reign of Maximinus, 235 to 237. The eighth 
was in the reign of Decius from 250 to 253. Valerian con- 
ducted the ninth persecution, 257 ; during which Cyprian was 
a martyr ; and the tenth was under Diocletian, 303 A. D. 
All these persecutions were marked by great severity, 
and they had for their end the purpose of compelling the 



24 THE SUB-APOSTOLIC AGE, AND 

Christians to give up their new creed and conform to the 
religion of the empire. Says one writer, " Death itself 
seemed too slight a punishment in. the eyes of these cruel 
persecutors, unless it was accompanied by the most painful 
and trying circumstances. It was by crucifixion and devour- 
ing beasts and lingering fiery torments that the great multi- 
tudes of those early martyrs received their crown. Racked 
and scorched, lacerated and torn limb from limb, agonized in 
body, mocked at and insulted, they were objects of pity even 
to the heathen themselves." 6 

Pliny the younger was sent, about the year 105-110, as 
has been related, as proconsul to Pontus and Bithynia. He 
writes 7 that he there found that the temples of the national 
religion were almost deserted, that persons accused of Chris- 
tianity were very numerous ; of every age and both sexes, 
of all ranks, and were found not only in towns but in villages 
and country places. He wrote to the Emperor for instruc- 
tions, stating that he had questioned the accused repeatedly; 
of those who persisted in avowing themselves Christians, he 
had ordered some to be put to death, and had reserved oth- 
ers, who were entitled to the privileges of Roman citizens, 
with the intention of sending them to Rome. " I had no 
doubt," he says, "that whatever they might confess, wilful- 
ness and inflexible obstinacy ought to be punished." 
"Some," he says, "worshipped thy image and spoke male- 
dictions of Christ." {male dixerunt Christo.) "They af- 
firmed that this had been the sum total of their guilt or error, 
that they had been accustomed on an appointed day to meet 
together before daylight and sing responsively a hymn to 
Christ as God, and that they bound themselves together by a 
sacrament, not to commit theft, or robbery, or adultery ; and 



THE TEN GREAT PERSECUTIONS. 25 

not to break a promise or betray a trust and that when these 
things had been done, it had been their custom to disperse 
and come together again for the partaking of a common 
and harmless banquet, but that they had desisted from doing 
this since my edict, in which, according to your commands, 
I had forbidden fraternities to exist. Wherefore I thought it 
the more necessary to find out by torture, what was the truth, 
from two female servants (ancillis) who were called ministers 
{ministrae). I found nothing else but a perverse and exces- 
sive superstition." My friends, this celebrated letter of the 
zealous and inconsistent Pliny, the anxious young proconsul, 
who put Christians to death because he was not sure what 
they believed, is one of the good things that came to the 
Church in God's providence, out of those dark days of per- 
secution. It tells its own story. We know from other 
sources that there were Deaconesses in the early Church, we 
know from Christian authors, of a sacrament which binds 
the disciple of Jesus Christ to renounce " all the sinful lusts 
of the flesh." We know of a banquet partaken together and 
innocent, we know of the ancient antiphons or anthems, sung 
responsively to Christ as God, but the testimony of a heathen 
ruler to the existence of these things in the Church as early 
as the year no, is of unquestionable importance. 

I quote next from another writer who lived in the days of 
Trajan and who was admitted to the honour of martyrdom 
Dec. 20, 1 1 6, A. D. That is, Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch. 
There are three epistles from him, of undoubted genuine-* 
ness. One is addressed to "Polycarp, Bishop of the Smyr- 
neans." Another is addressed " to the most blissworthy 
church which is in Ephesus," and the third ''to the church 
of the Romans." The noblest language pervades these let- 



26 THE SUB-APOSTOLIC AGE, AND 

ters and that you may see how he looked forward to martyr- 
dom I quote from his epistle to the Romans ; " I am God's 
wheat, and by the teeth of the beasts am I ground, that I may 
be found God's pure bread." Ignatius, we are told by Euse- 
bius, was the son of the second Bishop of Antioch after the 
days of St. Peter. He was a disciple of St. John. His 
writings are from ten to twenty years later than those of 
Clement of Rome ; and we find in them the distinction first 
recognized between the bishops and the presbyters. The 
following passage is remarkable for that very thing. And 
here again, I must disclaim any theory on the subject. I 
take the facts just as I find them and those facts disclose in 
the beginning of the second century, say in the year no, an 
episcopal form of government just such as we now have. 
" Keep ye to the bishop," says Ignatius, "that God also may 
keep to you. I pledge my soul for those who are subject to 
the bishop and the presbyters and the deacons ; may my 
portion with God be with them ! Labour together, struggle 
together, run together, go to sleep together, rise together as 
God's stewards and intimate friends and ministers." "Let 
your baptism be to you as armor, and faith as a helmet and 
love as a spear and patience as a panoply." Earlier in this 
same epistle to Polycarp, whom he calls, "the Bishop of the 
Smyrneans," he says: " Let not those confound thee who, 
appearing worthy of truth, teach strange doctrines. Stand 
in the truth like an anvil to be struck, for it becometh a great 
athlete to be struck and to conquer. More especially on 
God's account it behoveth us to endure everything, that he 
also may endure us. Be careful more than thou art. Be 
discerning of the times." 

In what way these early Bishops regarded their office, will 



THE TEN GREAT PERSECUTIONS. 27 

appear from an extract taken from Polycarp, the Bishop to 
whom Ignatius was writing. He says in his letter to the 
church at Philippi, " I have not assumed to myself, brethren, 
the liberty of writing to you these things concerning right- 
eousness ; but ye yourselves encouraged me. For neither 
can I, nor any other such as I am, come up to the wisdom of 
the blessed and renowned Paul." He exhorts them to be 
"subject to the presbyters and deacons ;" and in the opening 
words of his letter he says " Polycarp and the presbyters that 
are with him to the church of God which is at Philippi." 

About the year 125, another Barnabas (not the companion 
of St. Paul) wrote a letter supposed to have been addressed 
to the Alexandrian Christians. A short extract from it will 
show how at that time the custom of keeping Sunday instead 
of the Sabbath had become fixed. After a somewhat lengthy 
argument on the subject, he says, "Look ye how he saith, 
'your present Sabbaths are not acceptable unto me, but the 
Sabbath which I have made, in the which, when I have fin- 
ished all things, I will make the beginning of the eighth day, 
which is the beginning of the new world.' Wherefore also 
we keep the eighth day unto gladness, in the which Jesus 
also rose from the dead, and, after that he had been manifest- 
ed, ascended into the heavens." 

Justin, called also the Martyr, was born about the year 100, 
and was put to death in the year 163. I quote next from his 
Apologia, as showing what was then the Church's doctrine of 
Baptism and the Holy Communion. " How we dedicated our- 
selves to God, being new made through Christ, I will explain, 
lest if I omit this, I appear to be cheating in my explanation. 
All, then, who are persuaded and believe that the things 
which are taught and affirmed by us are true ; and who prom- 



28 THE SUB-APOSTOLIC AGE, AND 

ise to be able to live accordingly, are taught to pray, and beg 
God with fasting to grant them forgiveness of their former 
sins ; and we pray and fast with them. Then we bring them 
where there is water, and after the same manner of regener- 
ation in which we also were regenerated ourselves, they are re- 
generated ; for, in the name of God, the Father and Lord of 
all things, and of our Saviour Jesus Christ, and of the Holy 
Ghost, they then receive the washing of water." Infant bap- 
tism is mentioned frequently by the early Fathers. 

In another place describing the celebration of the Lord's 
Supper, Justin says, " Then is brought to the president of the 
brethren, bread, and a cup of water and wine, which he re- 
ceives, and offers up praise and glory to the Father of all 
things, through the name of his Son and of the Holy Ghost, 
and he returns thanks at length for our being vouchsafed 
these things by him ; when he has concluded the prayers and 
thanksgivings, all the people who are present express their 
assent by saying Amen. . . And when the president has 
celebrated the eucharist, and all the people have assented, 
they whom we call deacons give to each of those who are 
present a portion of the eucharistic bread, and wine and water, 
and carry them to those who are absent. And the food is 
called by us eucharist, of which no one is allowed to partake 
but he who believes the truth of our doctrines, and who has 
been washed with the washing that is for the forgiveness of 
sins and to regeneration, and who so lives as Christ has di- 
rected. For we do not receive them as ordinary food or or- 
dinary drink ; but . . the food which was blessed ... is, we 
are taught, both the flesh and blood of that Jesus who was 
made flesh." "Sunday is the day on which we all hold our 
common assembly, because it is the first day on which God, 



THE TEN GREAT PERSECUTIONS. 20, 

when he changed the darkness and matter made the world ; 
and Jesus Christ our Saviour on the same day rose from the 
dead : for the day before that of Saturn he was crucified, and 
on the day after it, which is Sunday he appeared to his apos- 
tles and disciples and taught them these things which we 
have given to you also for your consideration." 8 

The unity of the Church, and the New Testament Scrip- 
tures to which all sacred writers of those days refer, are testi- 
fied by a writing of unknown authorship, which is assigned by 
scholars to the year 170 or thereabouts, and called, from the 
name of its discoverer, the "Muratorian Fragment." It gives 
a partial, almost a complete list of the books of the New 
Testament, and says, "The blessed apostle Paul himself, fol- 
lowing the order of his predecessor John, writes only to seven 
churches. . . But to the Corinthians and Thessalonians, 
though for rebuke he wrote twice, notwithstanding it is known 
that there is only one Church scattered over the whole earth." 

Tertullian who died about the year 220, gives 9 a list of the 
Bishops of Rome from the times of the Apostles to his own 
day. His voluminous writings speak, among other things, of 
baptism and confirmation, of prayer, of penitence and of flight 
in persecution. 

Clement of Alexandria, a master mind of about the same 
time, writes as follows : IO " According to my opinion, the 
grades here in the church, of bishops, presbyters, deacons, 
are imitations of the angelic glory, and of that economy which, 
the Scriptures say, awaits those who, following the footsteps 
of the apostles, have lived in perfection of righteousness ac- 
cording to the gospel. For these taken up in the clouds, 
the apostle writes, will first minister [as deacons] then be 



30 THE SUB-APOSTOLIC AGE, AND 

classed in the presbyterate, by promotion in glory (for glory 
differs from glory) till they grow into a perfect man." 

Of the other writers of the sub-apostolic age, time will not 
permit me to quote. O'rigen, Cyprian, Firmilian, and Cor- 
nelius are among the principal Christian writers of that time, 
beside those who have been mentioned. It was indeed a 
troublesome age. The words of the Master were amply fulfilled, 
and many times it must have seemed as though the end were 
at hand. Emperor after emperor persecuted the little flock ; 
but still the little flock grew larger and stronger. Torn by 
deepest distress without, they were also perplexed #by the rise 
of heresies within. Of that we shall speak in the next ser- 
mon when we come to examine the Church's way of treating 
heresy in the age of the Six General Councils, or, as it is 
commonly called, the Conciliar age, dating from 325 to 680 
A. D. 

But the age of persecution had now spent itself, "the blood 
of the martyrs had been the seed of the Church," and in the 
Emperor Constantine the world first saw a Christian on the 
Imperial throne. His reign was from 312 to 337, A. D., al- 
though he was proclaimed Emperor in the year 306. 

Before closing however, I beg to call your attention to one 
more writer, the great historian of the period we have been 
studying to-day, Eusebius, who wrote about the year 300. I 
am happy to furnish from his writings, a record, which will 
perhaps be of some value in connecting together the inter- 
mittent glimpses which these other writers have given us. 
People very often ask, What evidence have you to show that 
the continuity of the apostolic Church was maintained ? And 
how do you know that it was continued in the Bishops ? The 
answer as it is given in the pages of Eusebius is such as to 



THE TEN GREAT PERSECUTIONS. 3 1 

satisfy any unprejudiced mind. I ask your patience for a few 
moments longer while I show you what Eusebius has done 
for us in this regard. Pray bear in mind the persecutions we 
have described and the struggle through which the Church 
of Christ lived. If ever "the gates of hell" were to prevail 
it was then when the numbers were few and the churches 
scattered far and wide with fearful foes to contend against. 
If ever the ministry was to be destroyed and the succession 
broken then was the time. But how was it? Hear the testi- 
mony of Eusebius. He says, " " There were many others, 
also, noted in these times, who held the first rank in the apos- 
tolic succession. These, as the holy disciples of such men, 
also built up the churches where foundations had been pre- 
viously laid in every place by the apostles." . . "As it is im- 
possible for us to give the numbers of the individuals that be- 
came pastors or evangelists, during the first immediate suc- 
cession from the Apostles in the churches throughout the 
world, we have only recorded those by name in our history, 
of whom we have received the traditional account as it is de- 
livered in the various comments in the apostolic doctrine still 
extant." He gives the names of the Bishops who succeeded 
the Apostles, in the churches at Jerusalem, at Antioch, at 
Rome, and at Alexandria. In the case of the church of Je- 
rusalem he names them in their order, in the other three he 
gives them, not in a connected list, but in various parts of 
his history, from which they have been collected ; and we have 
on his testimony these four successions without a break from 
the Apostles to the time in which Eusebius lived, about the 
year 300. I have tabulated them here in their order : I2 — 



32 



THE SUB-APOSTOLIC AGE, AND 





Church in 


Church in 


Church in 


Church in 




Jerusalem. 


Antioch. 


Rome. 


Alexandria. 


1 


James. 


Euodius. 


Linus. 


Annianus. 


2 


Symeon. 


Ignatius. 


Anacletus. 


Avilius. 


3 


Justus. 


Heron. 


Clement. 


Cerdon. 


4 


Zacchaeus. 


Cornelius. 


Evarestus. 


Primus. 


5 


Tobias. 


Eros. 


Alexander. 


Justus. 


(5 


Benjamin. 


Theophilus. 


Xvstus. 


Eumenes. 


7 


John. 


Maximinus. 


Telesphorus. 


Marcus. 


8 


Matthias. 


Serapion. 


Hyginus. 


Celadion. 





Philip. 


Asclepiades. 


Pius. 


Agrippinus. 


10 


Seneca. 


Philetus. 


Anicetus. 


Julianus. 


11 


Justus. 


Zebinus. 


Soter. 


Demetrius. 


12 


Levi. 


Babylas. 


Eleutherus. 


Heraclas. 


13 


Ephres. 


Fabius. 


Victor. 


Dionysius. 


14 


Joseph. 


Demetrianus. 


Zephyrinus. 


Maximinus. 


15 


Judas. 


Paul of Samosata. 


Callistus. 


Theonas. 


16 


Marcus. 


Domnus. 


Urbanus. 


Peter. 


17 


Cassianus. 


Timaeus. 


Pontianus. 




18 


Publius. 


Cyrillus. 


Anteros. 


[The note under 


19 


Maxim us. 




Fabianus. 


Antioch applies also 


20 


Julianus. 


[Although there 


Cornelius. 


in this case.] 


21 


Cains. 


were not so many in 


Lucius. 




22 


Symmachus. 


this succession as in 


Stephanus. 




23 


Caius, 2nd. 


those at Jerusalem 


Xvstus. 




24 


Julianus. 


and Rome yet they 


Dionysius. 




25 


Capito. 


embraced the same 


Felix. 




26 


Maximus. 


length of time.] 


Eutychianus. 




27 


Antoninus. 




Caius. 




28 


Valens. 




Marcellinus. 




20 


Dolichianus. 








30 


Narcissus. 









" Irenaeus, who was a martyr in the year 202, gives I3 the 
same list of the succession in Rome as far as his own time, 
ending with Eleutherus, who, he says, "does now, in the 
twelfth place from the Apostles hold the inheritance of the 
episcopate." He further says, 14 " It is within the power of 
all, in every church, who may wish to see the truth, to con- 
template clearly the tradition of the Apostles manifested 
throughout the whole world ; and we are in a position to reck- 
on up those who were by the Apostles instituted bishops in the 
churches, and [to demonstrate] the successions of these men 
to our own times." 

It is time however, now to close this sermon lest your pa- 
tience be overtaxed. The words of St Paul to Timothy come 
to our remembrance as we look at the history of these early 



THE TEN GREAT PERSECUTIONS. 33 

days. " The things that thou hast heard of me among many 
witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men who shall be 
able to teach others also." We have no " theory of apostolic- 
al succession," it is simply a historical fact. After the Apos- 
tles, Bishops took their place every where, by apostolic con- 
sent and appointment ; no other way of administration was 
dreamed of for the period of 1500 years, as we shall see. 
The Church of Christ in the age next to the apostles was ev- 
erywhere Episcopal. The continuity of the Church in the sub- 
apostolic age, in its threefold ministry of Bishops, Presbyters, 
and Deacons is as clearly demonstrated as the continuity 
of the Gospel itself. Priest is the shortened form of the word 
Presbyter, when used in this connection. Let him who has 
a "theory" on the subject, point out when that ministry was 
obliterated. The burden of proof rests not on us who ac- 
cept the history of the Church as we find it. Says the Prayer 
Book, and we agree in the saying, "It is evident tmto all 
men diligently reading Holy Scripture and ancient Authors, 
that from the Apostles time there have been these Orders 
of Ministers in Christ's Church, — Bishops, Priests l and Dea- 
cons, which offices were evermore had in such reverend estima- 
tion, that 7io man might presume to execute any of them, except 
he were first called, tried, examined, and known to have such 
qualities as a?e requisite for the same; and also by public 
Prayer with Imposition of Hands were approved and admitted 
thereto by lawful authority "** There is no theory here; it is 
simply the statement of a fact. I can not understand how any 
one should refuse to believe it. 



34 THE CONCILIAR AGE. 

III. 

THE CONCILIAR AGE. 



u The Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom : 
But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling 
block, and unto the Greeks foolishness ; But unto them which 
are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, 
and the wisdom of God." — I Corinthians i: 22, 23, 24. 

The topics and the events which are to come before us to- 
day, in our study of the history of the Christian Church, are 
of surpassing importance. We are to follow the thread of 
history from the year 312, to the year 680. During that 
period the Six General Councils were held, and from them 
the period is called the Conciliar Age. Why those councils 
were held, what they did, who composed them, and what 
shape they gave to Christian history : — these shall be our 
questions. 

Last Sunday we saw the Church of the first three centu- 
ries under the gloomy clouds of the ten great persecutions. 
Now we are to see her prospering under the smile and sun- 
shine of Imperial favour. The clouds break away in the days 
of the Emperor Constantine, the persecutors lay aside their 
instruments of torture, the refugees come out of their hiding 
places in caves and catacombs, Christian temples abound 
and the worship grows stately. Not only are "they of Cae- 
sar's household" favourable to the new religion, but Caesar him- 



THE CONCILIAR AGE. 35 

self declares by an imperial edict that the sword is no more to 
drink the blood of Christians. It would seem as though the 
world were already conquered and following at the wheels of 
the triumphal chariot of Christ ; it would seem as though all 
dangers now were past and that the Church has nothing 
more to fear. But the appearance is deceitful. A harder 
trial than mocking and scourging awaits the Church. Swift 
on the trial of adversity, follows the trial of prosperity, hard- 
er to bear, harder to overcome, because the foe now hides his 
frown behind a smiling mask, and seeks by the offer of glory 
and pomp, that ruin he has failed to accomplish by cruelty. 

Constantine was proclaimed Emperor in the year 306, but 
not until the year 312, when he conquered Maxentius the ty- 
rant, at the Milvian Bridge, did he reach the throne in the 
Imperial city; and not until ten or twelve years from that 
date (according to different historians) did he obtain sole 
possession of the Roman Empire by the defeat of his col- 
league Licinius. In 312, Constantine issued an edict in favour 
of the Christians, and followed it by a second in the next 
year establishing "for them in common with all other sub- 
jects of the empire, complete religious freedom." 

From the very beginning the Gospel had a conflict with 
the philosophies of those early ages. Certain of the Epicu- 
reans and Stoics reasoned against the Christians, and we 
read of St. Paul that he daily "disputed in the school of one 
Tyrannus." It is not possible now, and it is not desirable in 
this connection, to enter into any discussion of the teachings 
of the heathen philosophers. The Greeks were seeking after 
wisdom ; many of them found it in Christ ; and, coming into 
the Church with the methods of reasoning in which they had 
been trained they instituted differing schools or types o£ 



36 THE CONCILIAR AGE. 

Christian theology. Very naturally the varying opinions of 
men centered around the nature and person of Jesus Christ. 
The relation of Deity to humanity, the question of the origin 
of evil, and the way of overcoming evil : these had long 
been discussed in the schools of the philosophers. And 
now came a body of men saying with St. Paul, " We 
preach Christ crucified, the power of God and the wisdom 
of God." In the gospel of Christ Jesus a new impulse 
was given to those old studies and questions that had 
troubled the minds of the wise men ; for in Him, Deity and 
Humanity met ; good and evil were seen arrayed by Him. 
He claimed to have overcome the evil, and to have van- 
quished the last enemy, death, the most malignant manifes- 
tation of evil. No wonder then that the gospel became a 
new cause of strife among the philosophers, no wonder that 
it opened up again all the old questions which they had spent 
their lives in debating. And according as they accepted one 
part or another of that gospel, so on one side or the other 
did heresies arise to plague the Church. 

There was the Gnostic heresy which grafted a few Chris- 
tian tenets upon a philosophy whose chief characteristic was 
its utter repudiation of faith There were the Ebionites 
who denied the Godhead of Christ and declared that He was 
merely a man. There were the followers of Basilides who 
held that there were 365 orders of spirits emanating from 
the Supreme God, each order consisting of seven spirits 
and having for each order a separate heaven. The Mar- 
cionites rejected the Old Testament and most of the New, 
and held that there were three principles, God, the devil, and 
the Demiurge, the latter occupying a place between the for- 
mer two. A dispute arose very early concerning the date of 



THE CONCILIAR AGE. 37 

Easter day, called the Quarto-deciman controversy, from the 
Asiatic custom of celebrating the paschal supper on the 14th 
day of the first Jewish month. There was the heresy of the 
Montanists characterized by the great severity and rigor of 
its system, its multiplied fasts, and precepts as to penance. 
There was Sabellianism which speculated upon the mystery 
of the Godhead. There were the Patripassians who con- 
founded the Father with the Son and declared that the Fa- 
ther suffered on the cross. The Neoplatonic school tried to 
unite the wisdom of all ages in one system. Chiliasm or 
Millenarianism taught a literal view of the Millenium. The 
Novatian heresy held that a person who sinned after repent- 
ance must be forever excluded from the communion of the 
Church. Then there was Manichaeism which taught that 
there were two eternally contending forces or principles pre- 
siding respectively over the realms of good and evil. God 
was one and Demon or Matter the other and God was sup- 
posed to have the advantage. Docetism held that the body 
of Jesus was merely a phantom. 

These were among the principal heresies which arose in 
the first three centuries ; and were in existence when the 
edict of toleration was published by Constantine in 312 A. D. 

But there were three others which must be mentioned, 
because they were not only heresies but were sects in 
the Church ; viz : the Circumcellions, the Donatists and the 
Arians. These three emerge into the clearer light of history 
at the time when Constantine reached the fulness of his Im- 
perial power. The Circumcellions were the lower and more 
fanatical members of the Donatist schism, committing all 
sorts of crimes and extravagances in the name of religion. 
The Donatists proper, though they were fanatics also, yet 



38 THE CONCILIAR AGE. 

they disapproved the excesses of the Circumcellions. Ari- 
anism which took its name from Arius a native of Libya or 
Cyrenaica, held that Christ was created, that there was a 
time when He was not. It was this heresy which led to the 
First General Council. 

The Emperor Constantine had become a Christian. The 
familiar story of his conversion need not detain us long. It 
was said that he and his soldiers saw inscribed in the clouds, 
the sign of a cross or a monogram of the name of Christ, 
combining the first two Greek letters X and P (Chi and Rko) 
of the word ; together with the words touto nike, or as it is 
usually written in Latin, In hoc signo vinces : " Under this 
standard thou shalt conquer." This was said to have taken 
place in the year 312, and to have very shortly preceded his 
victory at the Milvian Bridge. Whatever may have been the 
truth concerning the vision, Constantine, previously disposed 
to favour the Christians, became from that time their open 
champion and defender. Then was the first alliance between 
Church and State ; an alliance which I do not think has ever 
been a good one. From that time, so far as Roman history is 
concerned, the Church shared the fortunes of the Empire. 
As the Empire grew corrupt the Church in Rome partook of 
her corruption, and when Rome fell, Saracens, Goths and 
Vandals trod the Church's holy things beneath their feet, 
and the heathen entered into God's inheritance. Eight cen- 
turies of gloom followed the sunset of Imperial splendour, 
and the Church felt that darkness also. On the ruined 
throne of the Roman Caesars, sat a monarch in the person of 
a pope whose tyranny often rivalled the tyranny of his 
pagan predecessors. But not to anticipate, let us return to 
the story of the days of Constantine. 



THE CONCILIAR AGE. 39 

In view of the spreading heresy of the Arians, Constan- 
tine called a council to meet in Nicaea in June, 325. Romish 
historians will tell you that it was called, not by the Emperor 
but by the pope, and that the pope presided. Neither of 
these statements is true. It was called by Constantine and 
presided over by Hosius, Bishop of Cordova. It is known 
by the name of an (Ecumenical or General Council, because, 
while there had been many councils before that time, this was 
the first to which delegates were summoned from every part 
of the universal Church. It is believed that the number of 
Bishops present was correctly stated by Athanasius, as 318, 
although some place the number as low as 200. There were 
four persons however most conspicuous in the deliberations, 
and those were Constantine, Alexander, Bishop of Alexan- 
dria, Arius the heretic, and Athanasius. 

The earlier sessions of the council "seem to have been 
held in a church. Arius was repeatedly heard in defence of 
his opinion," but so open was the avowal that it caused those 
present to stop their ears. " About a fortnight after the 
opening of the council, Constantine arrived, and the sittings 
were transferred to the palace, where the Emperor appeared 
at them, and acted as moderator." The deliberations of the 
Council were up to this time marred by confusion and con- 
tention, but now it seems to have become more orderly. The 
Ouartodeciman controversy concerning the date of Easter 
Day was one subject of discussion, the Arian heresy the 
other. The former question was decided adversely ; the 
Arian opinions were condemned. Arius was banished, and 
the Nicene creed was issued, bearing the signatures of all 
but two of the Bishops present : these two being probably 
personal friends of Arius. This creed which was designed 



40 THE CONCILIAR AGE. 

to furnish a barrier against the Arian heresy, was the asser- 
tion by the Nicene Council, not of a new gospel, but of what 
had been, from the first, less explicitly stated in the Apostles' 
Creed, of whose origin we have no record. It did not come 
from Nicaea in the -form in which we now have it. It ended 
with the words "I believe in the Holy Ghost." All the rest 
was added later. How did the remaining words find place 
there ? The answer to this question is the story of the Sec- 
ond General Council, called the first of Constantinople? 
which was held in the year 381, under the reign of Theo- 
dosius the Great. 

Heresy was not destroyed by the action of the Nicene 
Council though the true Catholic faith was declared touching 
the Divinity of Christ. A new heresy appeared called Mace- 
donianism, from the name of Macedonius who was patriarch 
of Constantinople and who had added to the Arian heresy a 
denial of the Divinity of the Holy Ghost. At this Council 
150 Bishops were present and the Nicene Creed was reaffirmed 
with the addition of all those words which follow " I believe 
in the Holy Ghost," excepting only the famous words, "ftl- 
ioqne" stating that He "proceedeth from the Father, and the 
S011." The words " and the Son," were added still later, and 
have never been accepted by the Eastern Church. The 
great division between the Eastern and the Western Churches, 
you will find commonly ascribed to the controversies which 
arose in the eleventh century over this phrase ; but it is by 
no means to be inferred that that was the only cause of the 
breach, as we shall see in the next sermon. 

A moment ago I used the word " patriarch." Let me stop 
for a few words of explanation. In the early part of the 
second century the only office known to have existed, in the 



THE CONCILIAR AGE. 41 

ministry of the Church, beside those of Bishops, Priests, 
and Deacons, was that of Deaconesses, who were employed 
in such work as men, from the customs of the East were not 
able to perform. But we find that in the latter part of the 
same century several new offices were introduced, lower than 
that of Deacon, doubtless appointed for special emergency, 
as they were not universally adopted. They were sub-dea- 
cons, acolyths, exorcists, readers and door-keepers. And 
while the lower orders were being thus supplemented, we 
find a growing system of defining and distinguishing among 
the higher officers, the Bishops. The chief city being re- 
garded as a metropolis the synods naturally met there and 
the Bishop of the place presided. Thus arose the name and 
rank of a " metropolitan ; " not a new order in the ministry, 
any more than an arch-bishop in after times, but simply a 
Bishop held in higher regard because of the greater impor- 
tance attaching to his diocese, or jurisdiction, for that is 
what the Greek word diocese means. A country Bishop was 
called a choi'episcopus. Then, a still higher authority was at- 
tached to those Bishops who were placed over the seats of 
government, especially those in which the apostles them- 
selves had planted the Church, as for example, Jerusalem, 
Rome, Alexandria and Antioch. The bishops in these places 
were called "Patriarchs," l6 and sometimes "Popes." 

The sunshine of Imperial favour wrought many changes in 
the Church's ritual which we shall have time to consider by 
and bye, in a later discourse, but a word may be said as to 
the arrangements of the Christian Temples. When they came 
out of their dark hiding places in caverns and dens of the 
earth, the Christians found awaiting them certain buildings 
at Rome, called the Basilicas. But even before that, Tertul- 



4 2 THE CONCILIAR AGE. 

lian speaks of church buildings, as early as 200 A. D. Eu- 
sebius, A. D. 300, describes the church building at Tyre as 
having a court, surrounded with cloisters, with a fountain in 
the middle for purification. Our word "font" is short for 
fountain. Beyond this was a chancel having " the holy altar," 
as he calls it, " in the middle," stalls for the bishops, and low- 
er seats. The chancel was divided from the rest of the church 
by a screen of elaborate workmanship and made of wood. 17 
But in the western countries it was the Roman Basilica which 
determined the form of the subsequent Christian Church 
building. What purpose the Basilica served among the Ro- 
mans is not clearly known ; probably it was a kind of court 
room, or perhaps a place of exchange. Here the favoured 
Christians held their public worship. The buildings were 
oblong and were divided lengthwise by two rows of columns 
into a middle part, or nave and two aisles of inferior height. At 
one end was a raised platform or "bema" terminating in a 
semicircular portion or "absis" from which our word apse is 
derived. At Constantinople the foundation was made in the 
form of a cross when churches were built, and the buildings 
usually fronted the east. 18 Afterward, however, the practice 
became universal in the west, of having the chancel toward 
the east, as a reminder to the people, of Christ the risen Sun 
of righteousness, who was ever to be kept before their eyes. 
I would be glad to spend more time than I can now afford 
in pointing out the work of a few faithful men among the 
many who in that age of intellectual activity kept the Cath- 
olic faith. But I must pass over with the' merest mention 
the names of Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, Chrysostom, 
Bishop of Constantinople, the great friend of missions and 
builder of hospitals, and Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, who 



THE CONCILIAR AGE. 43 

introduced choral music'into the western Church. We must 
hasten to the Third General Council, composed of some 200 
Bishops, summoned by the Emperor Theodosius the young- 
er, A.D. 431, and held at Ephesus. This Council condemned 
the heresy of Nestorius, who taught that the Virgin Mary 
was the mother of our Lord's human nature only, implying 
that Christ had not always been God. The Council of Eph- 
esus, while it affirmed the Catholic faith and condemned also 
the heresy of Pelagius concerning free will, yet was in 
many respects a disgraceful affair. The streets were filled 
with a rabble of ignorant partisans, the bishops themselves 
indulged in angry contentions and violent recriminations, and 
Nestorius declared that his life was in danger. There is no 
quarrel more bitter than a religious quarrel ; and the story of 
the Ephesine Council illustrated this fact. We must turn 
with unfeigned disgust from many scenes in the history of 
the Christian Church. Often the stream is swollen and im- 
pure : but the treasure, to change the figure, is the thing of 
value after all, and must be considered apart from the earth- 
ern vessels which contain and transmit it from age to age. 
We may gladly draw the veil over the riotous proceedings of 
this Third General Council, and turn to the next conspicuous 
figure in the story. It is that of Eutyches. He taught that 
Christ was God only, and not man. It is wonderful to see 
how in those early days men played fast and loose with the 
Gospel of Christ crucified, how they tossed the subject from 
side to side, as in a game of battledore and shuttlecock, how 
they insisted now on one opinion and again on the very op- 
posite. Whether the Church dealt wisely or not in holding 
these General Councils, is not the question we have to decide 
at present. We are only looking to see what happened, wise 



44 THE CONCILIAR AGE. 

or otherwise. Eutyches was condemned and Eutychianism 
with him, by the Fourth General Council, held at Chalcedon 
in the year 451, under the reign of the Emperor Marcian. 
The number of Bishops attending is variously reported from 
520 to 630. Dioscorus, Bishop of Alexandria, who had shown 
himself a tyrant and scandalously immoral was deposed and 
banished to Paphlagonia. This Council also was the scene 
of noisy and tumultuous disorder. " Mutual anathemas were 
shouted forth against the asserters and the deniers of the two 
Natures " of Christ ; and " the description of the scene might 
recall to our minds the tempests of modern " political " as- 
semblies rather than the ideal which we might have naturally 
formed of the Church's greatest general council." I9 The 
Fifth General Council was held at Constantinople in the year 
553 and was attended by 165 Bishops. It reaffirmed the 
decisions of the first four councils, especially those against 
the Nestorians. The Sixth was held in the same city in the 
year 680. Both these were called by the reigning Emperor. 
The last condemned a new development of Eutychianism. 
These Six General Councils have been accepted by the entire 
Christian Church in all lands, and in all times since they 
were held, as uttering the testimony of the Catholic Church 
with a united voice, concerning the matters in debate. No 
other councils have been .so recognized. True there have 
been other councils, great numbers of them, called by th e 
Bishops of Rome and entitled CEcumenical ; but they were not 
CEcumenical and were never received as such by the Church 
Catholic. It does not seem probable that there will ever be 
another General Council, gathered from all parts of the Chris- 
tian Church. Some hold that it would not be desirable, even 
if it were possible ; but it seems to me that if the Western 



THE CONCILIAR AGE. 45 

and the Oriental Branches of the Church could meet by del- 
egates and establish a basis of union and communion and af- 
firm once more in the hearing of all the world, the one faith 
in our Crucified Redeemer, it might do very much toward 
convincing the unbelief and the ignorance of men that He is 
indeed, to Jew and to Greek, " the power of God and the wis- 
dom of God." 

As that distracted age fades out of sight, and its clamors 
die away, two things command our devout and thankful rec- 
ognition. One is that the faith was kept, pure from the her- 
esies of heathen philosophers, and the other, that the 
Church's order was not broken. The superstitions of mod- 
ern Rome and the departures from the ancient ministry came 
later. Two names come into prominence in the latter part of 
the Conciliar age and must be mentioned : Mahomet and 
Gregory the Great. It would be aside from our course were 
we to give very much attention to Mahomet ; yet his influ- 
ence was not a slight one upon the Christians of the time. 
Mahometanism was prepared for in the East, by the Arian 
heresy. It fastened upon the weakened churches of the East, 
a mongrel religion of perverted Christianity, pagan supersti- 
tion and corrupt Judaism. 

Gregory the Great, will come before us more at length in 
the next sermon. Suffice it for now to say that the title 
which has been given to him is a just one. Would that the 
other Bishops of Rome had never departed from his wisdom, 
or changed his ways. He marks the transition from the Early, 
to the Middle period of Christian History, and from him the 
rise of the Papacy and the decline of learning are rapid. 
The twilight steals on apace, and the night that slowly wears 
away for the next eight hundred years, is a time of thrilling 



46 THE MIDDLE AGE, 

interest in some respects, a time of discouraging darkness in 
others. The age we have now been considering, from 312 
to 680, was beyond doubt the most trying, yet the most rapid 
in the spread of Christianity ; the most distracted, yet the 
most exact in its dogmatic statements, the Church has ever 
seen. He who studies the history of the Church in those days, 
must remember that they marked the growing corruption of 
Roman life and the decadence of the Empire ; and yet, be- 
neath the turbulent surface of the history were many true and 
noble lives. The power of the Cross was mighty in that 
troubled age, and through all the distractions and debates, 
animating all discussions and inspiring all actions, even when 
zeal took a misdirected form of expression, it is not hard to 
trace the influence of Christ crucified, "the power of God, 
and the wisdom of God." The philosophy of the Cross sur- 
vived, where human philosophies perished. It will always 
be so. 



IV. 



THE MIDDLE AGE, AND THE RISE OF 
THE PAPACY. 



* "Ye know that the princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion 
over them, and they that aie great exercise authority upon them. 
But it shalt not be so among you!' — St. Matt, xx : 25, 26. 

To day we are to see how these words of the Master were 
disobeyed, in what is called the Middle Age of Christian 
history, When our blessed Lord said, " I say unto thee, 



AND THE RISE OF THE PAPACY. 47 

Thou art Peter and upon this rock I will build my Church," 
what are we to understand by the word "rock"? Rome 
under her later papal development understands that the 
Church is built upon St. Peter. Catholics who are not Ro- 
manists understand that the Church is "built upon the foun- 
dation of apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being 
the head corner stone," and that the "Rock" is that Christ 
whom Peter had confessed just before. When our Saviour 
said to St. Peter, "I will give unto thee the keys of the 
kingdom of heaven," modern Rome holds that He created 
St. Peter the infallible chief Bishop over the whole Church, 
and that his successors, the Bishops of Rome, inherit that 
pre-eminence. Catholics who are not Romanists maintain 
that our Lord explained His own words, when, later, He 
gave to all the Twelve that which St. Peter received repre- 
sentatively, saying as He breathed on them, " Receive ye 
the Holy Ghost : whosesoever sins ye remit, they are remit- 
ted unto them ; and whosesoever sins ye retain they are re- 
tained." And as to the infallibility of the successors of the 
fallible St. Peter, two things need to be remembered ; in the 
first place the name of St. Peter is joined, by ancient histo- 
rians, with that of St. Paul, as founders of the Church at 
Rome. St. Paul wrote the Epistle to the Romans. St. 
Peter was the apostle to the Jews ; so much we know from 
Holy Scripture ; and in the second place, the New Testament 
knows nothing about infallibility in any apostle, least of all 
in St. Peter who thrice denied his Lord, before the coming of 
the Holy Ghost, and was "withstood to the face" by St. Paul, 
"because he was to be blamed," after the Holy Ghost had 
come. 2 ° 

There are some intimations of a superiority claimed for the 



48 THE MIDDLE AGE, 

Roman Church before the Middle Age. For instance Iren- 
aeus writes, about 185 A. D., in his great work "Against 
Heresies," 2I " It is matter of necessity that every church 
should agree with this church " that is, the Church at Rome, 
"on account of its pre-eminent authority," (propter potior em 
principalitatem ; latin version.) Yet Irenseus himself says 
on the same page that this Church was " founded and organ- 
ized at Rome by two most glorious apostles, Peter and Paul. " 
So it is evident that Irenoeus knew nothing of the theory 
that St. Peter alone founded the Roman Church and pos- 
sessed infallibility and supremacy over the whole Church. 22 
The "pre-eminent authority" of which he speaks may be un- 
derstood as a natural reference to the superior position which 
the Church would enjoy at the seat of the Empire, even in 
those days of persecution. But the original Greek is lost and 
"we have only the old Latin version of it." 23 Again, Leo 
the Great, 440 to 461, A.'D. "raised the claims of the Ro- 
man Bishop as the representative of St. Peter to a height 
before unknown." 24 But all intimations of Roman suprem- 
acy before the days of Gregory the Great are sufficiently de- 
molished by the letters which that Bishop wrote with his own 
hand. Gregory was born at Rome, about the year 540, and 
was consecrated Bishop of Rome in September 590. He 
was one of the wisest rulers, one of the noblest characters, 
and one of the greatest Bishops the Church has ever had. 
His benefactions to the needy, his improvements in the edu- 
cational standards of his clergy, his reforms and elevation of 
the character of worship, his attention to music as shown in 
the Gregorian Chants, which are called so from him, are mat- 
ters of history. It is related of him that " when a poor man 
had been found dead in the street, Gregory abstained for 



AND THE RISE OF THE PAPACY. 49 

some time from the celebration of the Eucharist, as consid- 
ering himself to be the cause of his death. He was in the 
habit of sending dishes from his own table to persons whom 
he knew to be in want, but too proud or too bashful to ask 
relief." The possessions of the Roman Church by this time 
had become enormous. They were called by the name of 
"the patrimony of St. Peter," and embraced many "estates 
in Italy and the adjacent islands," also in Gaul, Illyria, Dal- 
matia, Africa and Asia. Under his Episcopate these posses- 
sions grew still greater, and he administered their affairs 
through the agency of commissioners chosen from the lower 
orders in the ministry. Thus many churches became tribu- 
tary to Rome and subordinate to Gregory. In his hands 
however, the power was wisely wielded ; and yet Gregory 
contributed in these ways innocently enough, to the erection 
of a system which became in after times the blight of Chris- 
tendom. The name "pope" which meant simply father, was 
not at first confined to the Bishop of Rome, nor was it so in 
Gregory's day. It was a common appellation given not only 
to Bishops, but, in many instances, to other ministers. 
" Gregory always treated the eastern patriarchs as independ- 
ent." He spoke of the Bishops of Alexandria and Antioch 
as his equals. And this brings us to some very interesting 
and important correspondence, which will serve to shew that, 
however Gregory might have upheld the dignity of his own 
position, the papacy with which we are acquainted was of a 
later growth. 

The story is this. In the year 585, John, who was called 
"the Faster," on account of his ascetic life, was raised to the 
dignity of Patriarch of Constantinople. In 587 he assumed, 
like some of his predecessors, the title of "CEcumenical 



50 THE MIDDLE AGE, 

Bishop." Gregory remonstrated, not because of any en- 
croachment upon his own right, but because it derogated 
from the dignity of the Emperor. 25 He declared that John 
had been drawn by his flatterers into the use of that " proud 
and foolish" word ; that the assumption "was an imitation of 
the devil, who exalted himself above his brother angels ; that 
it was unlike the conduct of St. Peter, who, although the 
first of the apostles, was but a member of the same class zvith 
the rest. The council of Chalcedon, he said, had indeed 
given the title to the Bishops of Rome," (which was a mis- 
take, the Council did nothing qf the sort,) "but that they had 
never adopted it, lest they should seem to deny the pontificate 
to others!' He further declared that the term " CEcumenical 
Bishop" was an invention of the first apostate. He wrote 
to Eulogius, Bishop of Alexandria, and to Anastasius, Bishop 
of Antioch, endeavouring to enlist their interest against the 
adoption of such a title by John. Eulogius, in his reply 
stated that he had ceased to use it in writing to John, as 
Gregory had commanded, and in his letter he addressed 
Gregory as "universal pope;" to which the Bishop of Rome 
replied, " I beg that you would not speak of commanding, 
since I know who I am, and who you are. In dignity you are 
my brother ; in character my father. I pray your most 
sweet holiness to address me no more with the proud appel- 
lation of 'universal pope,' since that which is given to an- 
other beyond what reason requires is subtracted from 
yourself. If. you style me ' universal pope,' you deny that 
you are at all that which you own me to be universally. 
Away with, words which puff up vanity and wound charity." 26 
Romish historians have vainly tried to evade the plain 
sense of these damaging letters. Catholics who are not 



AND THE RISE OF THE PAPACY. 5 1 

Romanists assent to every word that I have quoted. In 
praising the wisdom and generosity of Gregory, I do not 
mean to imply that he made no mistakes. Under him the 
Romish doctrine and ritual of the Mass was brought into 
substantially its present form, and that service is contrary to 
the teaching of the Bible. .Gregory was in many ways justly 
entitled to be called the Great. He was pre-eminently a 
statesman. He sought to build up a spiritual kingdom whose 
outward magnificence and universal extent should command 
the allegiance of all hearts. He sent Augustine as a mis- 
sionary to Britain in the year 596. What Augustine discov- 
ered in England we shall have to tell next Sunday. But we 
may dismiss the name of Gregory with a single remark. He 
was one of the most protestant of Bishops, so far as the Pa- 
pal Supremacy and Infallibility are concerned. 

The successors of Gregory departed from his wisdom and 
catholicity however and their representatives at the 6th Gen- 
eral Council in 680, gave to Agatho the title which Gregory 
had rejected and denounced, and thereafter the Bishops of 
Rome have kept it. From that time onward the reverence 
for images and relics and pictures, which had begun before, 
grew to great proportions. It was sought by Leo the 
" Isaurian " to check and suppress this superstition, but the 
superstition only grew worse. What it is to-day may be seen 
from the conduct of the Romanists in Montreal during the 
recent epidemic, when processions and relics having taken 
the place of reasonable and certain means of checking the 
disease, the people perished miserably in great numbers. 

We must pass rapidly over this period of growing idolatry 
which is one of the plague spots in modern Romanism ; we 
must pass with the merest mention the conversion of Ger- 



52 THE MIDDLE AGE, 

many by Boniface, 715 to 755, A. D. and come to the name 
of Charlemagne who was crowned as Emperor of Rome, by 
Pope Leo III on Christmas Day, A. D. 800. Charlemagne 
who had acquired possession of the Frankish throne, after 
the death of Pipin, conquered the Lombards in 773 or 774, 
and became the master of the rest of Italy in 786. The 
coronation of the Emperor by the Pope took place at the 
Mass, in St. Peter's Cathedral at Rome, and Charlemagne 
professed both surprise and indignation. But whether 
Charlemagne was sincere or no, the pope's action led to the 
subsequent claim that the Bishop of Rome was able by his 
own authority, to bestow the gift of Empire. More than 
this, the coronation of Charlemagne separated Rome from 
the Greek Empire, and led to the division between the east- 
ern and western Churches which took place in the eleventh 
century and has never since been healed. Charlemagne 
reigned from the time of his coronation 14 years, making a 
term of nearly 50 years from the death of his father. By 
his gifts the possessions of the Roman Church were enor- 
mously increased. He sought to spread Christianity by vio- 
lent measures, and made great efforts for the revival of 
learning. The growth of monasteries and the monastic sys- 
tem had begun long before, and it was under the guidance of 
Alcuin, a learned monk, that Charlemagne tried to overcome 
the decline in letters, which had been great in the latter part 
of the Merovingian dynasty. The growing reverence for the 
Virgin Mary took the form of multiplied festival days in her 
honour. Other saints were added to the calendar and in some 
instances it was doubtful whether the honoured saint were 
a real or a fictitious personage. Wafers were substituted for 
common bread in the Eucharist about the year 700. But the 



AND THE RISE OF THE PAPACY. 53 

cup was not withdrawn from the laity in the Holy Commun- 
ion until the twelfth century ; and to-day, the Roman Cath- 
olic laity never receive the wine ; only the wafer ! They who 
receive the Communion least often, are therefore most closely 
copying the Romanist. After the time of Gregory the Great 
the doctrine of purgatory and masses for the dead were de- 
veloped, and that with rapidity. 

Between the years 829 and 857, appeared what are known 
as the famous forged Decretals. These bore the honoured 
name of Isidore, Bishop of Seville. They consisted of nearly 
100 letters, written in the names of very early Bishops of 
Rome, placing the privileges of the clergy, especially of the 
Bishops very high, while the power of the pope is extended 
beyond anything as yet known. He appears as the " head, 
lawgiver and judge of the whole Church." The forgery of 
these decretals was not exposed until the popes had derived 
great benefit from them ; and yet their falsity must have 
been easy to detect had there been any desire to do so. 
Quotations from St. Jerome's version of the Bible are con- 
tained in them, alleged to have been made by Bishops who 
died before St. Jerome was born. Other like discrepancies 
appear, and they are now universally allowed to have been 
gross forgeries. But the discovery was one of the fruits of 
the Reformation. Let us hope with Archbishop Trench, 27 
that the popes who appealed to them in support of the Papal 
Supremacy did so in the sincere belief that they were gen- 
uine. And it is neither fair nor just to suppose that the Pa- 
pal subjugation of western Christendom was due entirely to 
fraud and aggression. We must remember again with 
Trench, "the succession of statesmen, and these of the very 
first order, who, often at the most critical moments, and just 



54 THE MIDDLE AGE, 

when they were needed the most, occupied the Papal throne." 
I have no interest in excusing, and no desire to justify the 
growth of the Papacy. It lives upon the superstition of that 
ignorance which it fosters. Yet I cannot find it in my heart 
to deal unfairly even with so insidious and so monstrous a 
corruption of the pure and sweet and simple faith of Christ's 
Church and Gospel. I agree again with Trench, when he 
says, " who can doubt that in ages of such savagery and vio- 
lence, times in which all laws of God and man were so reck- 
lessly trampled under foot, it was much, and it was felt to be 
much, that there should be one man in the world, who could, 
and who sometimes did, rebuke without fear or favour the 
strongest and proudest of the wrong doers, the men of the 
earth, who were fain to persuade themselves that everything 
was permitted to them?" .... " There never was," he contin- 
ues, "and there never will be a golden age for the church till 
Christ her Lord shall come ; but every age will be full of 
scandals and shames : none were more crowded with such 
than those of which we are treating now." 28 

There were in the days which followed the production of 
the False Decretals, many who held the Pontifical chair, who 
were monsters of vice and cruelty. They were not all such, 
and the names of Adrian II, John XII, Innocent III (in later 
times), and Boniface VIII, must be balanced in the account 
of good and evil against such names as Nicholas I, Gregory 
VII, Alexander III, Innocent II, and many others both 
wise and well meaning. And then we must remember the 
frequent protests like those of the saintly Hincmar, Arch- 
bishop of Rheims, against the Papal usurpations. 

There was a struggle going on in the ninth, tenth and 
eleventh centuries, between Rome and Constantinople, for 



AND THE RISE OF THE PAPACY. 55 

the political supremacy. Besides, there was the quarrel over 
the words "and the Son," in the Nicene Creed, which was 
mentioned last Sunday. These jealousies and quarrels took 
shape in the eleventh century in an open rupture between 
the Eastern and Western Churches. That breach has never 
been healed. The year 1053 is memorable for this, that in 
that year Leo IX. issued a sentence of excommunication 
" against the Patriarch of Constantinople and all who adhered 
to him." The next year Michael Cerularius the Patriarch 
of Constantinople, returned the compliment by retorting the 
excommunication upon the Latins. 

I must pass by the growth of the custom of the celibacy 
of the clergy, saying only by way of dismissing it, that 
Adrian II, the Pope who perhaps most stoutly insisted upon 
it about the year 867, for the rest of the clergy, had been 
married himself, and was the son of a Bishop. 

The next conspicuous figure in the history of the Papacy 
is that of Hildebrand (afterwards called Pope Gregory the 
VII). He did what he could in his own way to reform the 
Church. In carrying out his plans he came in conflict with 
the weak and wicked Emperor, Henry IV of Germany. 
Hildebrand was cruel. He made the king, who was penitent 
for resisting him, stand, in a coarse woolen dress, barefooted, 
without food from morning till night three whole days, ex- 
posed to the piercing cold of winter, outside the walls of the 
Castle of Canossa, an Apennine fortress, whither the Pope 
had gone to meet him. At last the king was admitted and 
after the most abject submission and prostration before the 
Pope he received terms of absolution. The terms were such 
that he could not accept them and he went away ; but the 
end was to come. In 108 1 Henry led an army against Rome 



56 THE MIDDLE AGE, 

and three years afterward Hildebrand was overcome, deposed, 
banished, and a new Pope, or anti-pope, was consecrated. 
Hildebrand's was a character to inspire awe and ''perhaps 
admiration, but in no human bosom can it awaken a feeling 
of love." The advance of Papal Supremacy was his ruling 
passion, and no means were spared to secure that end'. 

Briefly to speak of the Crusades, which began with the 
First in the twelfth century, would be so unsatisfactory, that 
I must reluctantly pass them by without description as not 
essential to the history of the Papacy, and come to speak of 
some of the religious orders and sects of the Middle Age. 
The Waldenses and Albigenses were probably the most im- 
portant. "They fought for a scriptural religion." "Stretch- 
ing through central Europe to Thrace and Bulgaria, they 
joined hands with the Paulicians of the East, and shared 
their errors." They appeared first in the eleventh century 
but were so rapidly multiplied that they outnumbered, in the 
twelfth century the adherents of Rome. They were over- 
come, however, by the Roman organized methods of sup- 
pression, and began to disappear toward the close of the 
thirteenth century. Afterward came the Beghards and Beg- 
uines which were, at the first, free guilds and associations 
banded together for works of piety. Then, came the Fran- 
ciscans, an order distinguished for the rigor of its discipline. 
These orders became hostile to Rome and were the source 
of great danger to the Supremacy. Pope Innocent III sent 
a crusading army against them under the notorious Simon 
de Montfort. The horrors of the Albigensian war extended 
over a period of twenty years, (from 1209 to 1229.) The 
sword, fire and fagot were not swift enough for the extermin- 
ation of these hated foes, and in 1232, Pope Gregory the 



AND THE RISE OF THE PAPACY. 57 

Ninth organized, for more effective work, a system of trial 
which afterward became a permanent organization and is to 
be forever known as the blackest disgrace on the page of 
Papal history: "The Holy Office of the Inquisition." By 
the middle of the fourteenth century there were but a few 
Albigenses left, and all their organizations had been broken 
up. In the latter half of the fifteenth century the Inquisi- 
tion was busy mainly in burning Jews ; Torquemada in Spain, 
sending alone, it is said, some eight or nine thousand to the 
stake. The Waldenses survived, and, as Trench says, they 
alone were worthy to survive. The others, he says, could not 
have reformed the Church, for they carried in themselves the 
seeds of their own destruction. "It is only truth which can 
make men free, and they had not the truth." 

Among the doctrinal errors of Rome which grew up in 
the Middle Age, were transubstantiation, the doctrine of 
opus operatum, purgatory, indulgences, invocation of the 
saints and the denial of the cup to the laity in the Holy 
Communion. To discuss these topics fully would require a 
volume for each. Each was defended by what are known as 
the Schoolmen or defenders of Mediaeval Theology. This 
kind of scholasticism, which was never willing to learn any 
thing new and defended always the existing and established 
order, though it lingered on into the fifteenth century, came 
at last to be occupied with idle and unprofitable questions, 
and passed away. 

But a brighter day was breaking. The Renaissance or 
Revival of Learning could not long tolerate the gross dark- 
ness of ignorance and superstition which shrouded the land. 
Rome had, by the decree of the Council of Toulouse in 
1229, forbidden the laity to read or even to have copies of 



5 8 THE MIDDLE AGE. 

the Bible, and by her simoniacal practices, she had impover- 
ished and wearied her children past endurance. True and 
earnest hearts on all sides were longing for reformation, "in 
the Church, in its head and in its members." Who should 
lead it ? Who first lift up the rallying cry and gather to- 
gether those who were willing to shake off" the yoke of this 
tyranny ? The Papacy was an excrescence. Who should 
cut it away ? These questions we shall answer next Sunday. 
But for the present, in closing this outline of Mediaeval 
History, let me say, I have purposely omitted to trace the 
history of the Eastern Church after the division, for it could 
not be done with any thoroughness in the limits of this dis- 
course. Nor have I told as yet the history of the Church of 
England. That will come before us next Sunday. We must 
bear in mind that the monstrous assumptions of the Papacy 
met with many a resistance and many a protest. It was a 
cruel age, a cruel system. It had far departed from obedi- 
ence to the words of our Saviour, in the text we have left so 
far behind us to-day. Yet dark though that age was, there 
were always true men in every century, there were saints in 
the earth even then, and out of the darkness four things 
emerge into the clear light of the Reformation age, pure as 
gold that is tried in the furnace. Those four are the Bible, 
the unbroken continuity of the Church's Order, the Holy 
Communion and the Ancient Liturgy. That is to say, " The 
apostles' doctrine and fellowship, the breaking of the bread, 
and the prayers." Praised be God, that though the men 
who kept these things were, as we have seen, oftentimes 
most unworthy of the trust, yet the four great inheritances 
of the Catholic Church, the four things by which, in every 
age, the Church of Christ can be known, were not lost. 



THE REFORMATION AGE. * 59 

The Bible which was read in the Apostolic churches is ours 
to-day ; the ministry, sacraments and worship which be- 
longed to the Apostolic Church are not lost. The power 
which kept the Bible, kept these also : that is to say the 
power of Him who said, " Upon this rock I will build my 
church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." 



V. 

THE REFORMATION AGE. 



" Hear the word of the Lord, all ye of Judah, that enter 
in at these gates to worship the Lord. Thus saith the Lord of 
hosts, the God of Israel, amend your ways and your doings, 
and I will cause you to dwell in this place." — Jer. vii: 2, 3. 

There were two Reformations. The one which is called 
the Continental Reformation found a leader, at first, in Martin 
Luther, and had its place in the countries of continental Eu- 
rope ; principally Germany and Switzerland. The other took 
place in England and is known as the English Reformation. 
A wide divergence marks the lines on which these two great 
Reformations proceeded. The former was a movement, or 
series of movements " under the conduct of individual 
leaders." 29 It took the names of Lutheran and Calvinistic 
from the men who headed it. The latter, the English Refor- 



60 THE REFORMATION AGE. 

mation, took the name of no individual, but " was based 
upon a recognition of the rights of autonomous national 
churches ; on 'the principle of nationality as opposed to papal 
universalism ;' and took its form accordingly." 3 ° The start- 
ing points of these two, being thus distinct, the lines they 
followed were divergent. In the Continental the historic 
continuity of the Church was lost ; in the Anglican it was 
kept. A new form of church government appeared in the 
former called the Presbyterian which owes its origin to Cal- 
vin. In this respect, Presbyterianism departed from Luther- 
anism, which paid little attention to the subject of minis- 
terial succession. But Calvinism which arose later, saw that 
the subject of Episcopacy could not be ignored. Calvin 
himself is reported to have said that " The office of a Bishop 
was instituted by the authority and defined by the ordinance 
of God." 3I On the doctrine of the Holy Communion, 
Presbyterian standards are very like the teachings of the 
Church of England, while Lutherans held what is called 
" consubstantiation," in place of the Romish theory of "tran- 
substantiation." Calvin and Melancthon, another great Pres- 
byterian leader, both, made efforts to secure Episcopacy from 
England but failed. The ground thereafter taken by Presby- 
terians was that the apostolical succession was complete in 
the order of Presbyters. Hence the name Presbyterian. 
Luther died in February, 1546. Calvin died in May, 1564. 
The origin of the Continental Reformation is too well known 
to demand more than a passing word. The hammer in Mar- 
tin Luther's hand when he nailed his 95 theses on the papal 
doctrine of indulgences, upon the door of the Cathedral of 
Wittenberg sounded an alarm which spread with marvellous 
rapidity. It would be interesting had we the time, to tell the 



THE REFORMATION AGE. 6 1 

whole history of this movement and to examine more closely 
the practice of the wholesale barter of Indulgences in the 
hands of John Tetzel ; to review the history of such men as 
Melancthon and Erasmus, Zwingli and Arminius ; to tell the 
story of the Diet of Worms, and the Synod of Dort, and the 
Diet of Augsburg with its celebrated Confession of Faith, 
and to tell of the Westminster Assembly. But we are 
to concern ourselves to-day, more with the English Ref- 
ormation and must therefore pass by the many inviting 
topics and the men some of them good and true, who were 
identified with the Reformation on the Continent under its 
Lutheran or its Presbyterian phases. It ill becomes us to 
cast words of reproach upon the Continental Reformers or 
upon their descendants. Better far, while maintaining 
that the Church of England was right in keeping the ancient 
threefold ministry, to remember that the purpose of Refor- 
mation was alike, with all who took it in hand, to purify the 
Church of God, from the abuses and corruptions it had re- 
ceived. We cannot justify the departure from the ancient 
Church and her order. We deplore the loss of apostolic 
ministry and practice wherever they have been lost. Yet 
there was not a sect which arose at the Reformation but had 
an element of truth in it. . If there were evil minded men 
and false ideas connected with them, as unquestionably there 
were, it becomes us to remember the sins and errors of the 
age in which they lived, sins and errors from which our own 
forefathers were not free ; — and seek for the good that was 
in all. A wonderful reaching out toward one another for 
the restoration of the lost fraternity spirit, is seen on the 
part of all Christian people to-day. God forbid that we should 
say or do aught to hinder its perfect consummation in the 



62 THE REFORMATION AGE. 

blessed Spirit of the Christian Unity of the One Body, to be 
thenceforth maintained in the bond of peace. 

In studying the Reformation of the Church in England,, we 
must remember that England did not owe her Church or her 
Gospel to the Papacy of Rome. We saw last Sunday that 
the Papacy was a usurpation of Mediaeval growth. But 
Britain had her national Church long before the days when 
Gregory the Great sent Augustine, with forty other monks, 
there in 596, A. D. Some have thought that St. Paul 
brought the Gospel into Britain, referring among other 
sources to Clement's words who wrote, about the year 95, 
that St. Paul "won the noblest renown which was the reward 
of his faith, having taught righteousness unto the whole 
world, and having reached the farthest bounds of the west." 32 
But as Robertson says, " the early introduction of Christian- 
ity into Britain appears more certain than the agency by 
which it was effected." In the year 314, at the Council of 
Aries in France, we find the names of three British Bishops: 
Eborius of York, Restitutus of London, and Adelfius of 
Lincoln. The year 314 therefore saw the Church in Britain 
under Episcopal government sending its representatives to 
take part in a council, and the year 314 is long enough be- 
fore the rise of the Papacy to prove that the Church of 
Christ was not established in England by Papal mission- 
aries. 

The Saxons drove the Christians away to the western 
mountainous districts of Wales about the year 450. The 
venerable Bede, about 730, A. D., says that " Public and pri- 
vate buildings were alike destroyed, priests were everywhere 
murdered at the altar ; bishops and their people were indis- 
criminately slaughtered with fire and sword, and there was 



THE REFORMATION AGE. 63 

no one to bury the victims of such cruelty." In A. D. 597, 
Augustine set foot upon British soil. That he found the 
Christian Church there at all, was largely due to the work of 
Columba and the monks of Iona who did too much to be told 
here, for the cause of Christian education and nurture in Eng- 
land and Scotland. Ethelbert was King, reigning over the 
kingdom of Kent when Augustine came, and he had married 
Bertha, a Christian princess. Ethelbert received the mission- 
aries kindly and gave them "leave to take up their abode in 
Durovernum " now called Canterbury. There they found a 
church building of the ancient "Roman-British" period and 
in it Augustine and his followers worshipped. The spot is 
occupied to this day by a church, said to exhibit a large pro- 
portion of the ancient Roman materials. Augustine, the first 
Archbishop of Canterbury, by permission of Gregory adapted 
the ritual of the Roman use to the customs which he found 
in vogue in Britain, and which customs are Supposed to have 
been derived from the Liturgy of the Gallican use. Gregory 
furthermore wrote to Augustine, "we commit the care of all 
the British Bishops, to your brotherhood, that the ignorant 
may be instructed, the weak may be strengthened by your 
counsel, the perverse may be corrected by your authority." 
But the Bishops of the ancient British Church refused to 
submit, and Augustine is said to have told them in anger, 
that " if they would not have peace with their brethren they 
would have war with their enemies, and die by the hands of 
those to whom they refused to preach the gospel." Soon 
after this, Augustine died, having consecrated a Bishop, re- 
spectively, for the three 'cities of Rochester, London and 
Canterbury ; the latter as his own successor. 

Of the growing usurpations of the Roman Bishops after that 



64 THE REFORMATION AGE. 

time, enough has been said to show how England's Church, 
in common with the other western Churches, came under Pa- 
pal jurisdiction. Yet in hastening on to the time when that 
yoke was cast off I must not omit to mention that there were 
frequent protests on the part of the English, against the 
growing papal aggressions. Dunstan, Archbishop of Canter- 
bury in 961, refused to comply with the Pope's order to re- 
store a certain English earl who had been excommunicated, 
but who had by the use of money and influence obtained the 
Pope's mandate for his restoration. So in the following cen- 
tury the Archbishop of York " openly impugned the doctrine 
of transubstantiation ; " and in the next century the Bishop 
of Hereford defied the papal authority, and " paid no regard 
to the thunders of the Vatican " though he was twice excom- 
municated ; and in the next, "the Bishop of Lincoln visited 
Rome, and protested against its corruptions before the Pope 
and Cardinals."* 

On the 14th of October 1066, William the Norman won 
the battle of Hastings and became the King of England. 
Under the Norman reign the rivets of the Papal subjugation 
were more firmly fastened. But we may not linger over the 
details. A blow was struck for freedom in the days of King 
John. That blow was the prelude to the Reformation. The 
story of Runnymede and the Magna Charta is too familiar to 
need repetition here. Suffice it to say that the declaration 
was made in the very first article of that instrument, in 12 13, 
that " the Church of England shall be free, and shall have 
her rights entire and her liberties uninjured." 

When the sixteenth century opened, there was a wide- 
spread expectation that "Europe would ere long be shaken by 
some purifying tempest." " New importance was attached 



THE REFORMATION AGE. 65 

to individual freedom, and a higher value set on individual 

souls." "Every order of society was disturbed The 

feelings of many were exasperated by the scandalous lives of 
the ecclesiastics, . . . and a party of doctrinal reformers was 
emerging, almost simultaneously." In 1522 Pope Adrian 
VI. himself admitted that "many abominations had for a 
long time existed even in the holy see, yea, that all things 
had been grievously altered and perverted." 33 Papal usurpa- 
tion, and the corruption of doctrines and life, were the two 
things to be cast off. Numerous converging lines indicated 
the way. The translation of the Bible into the vernacular, 
the revival of learning, and the spirit of freedom were most 
prominent among them. As early as 1375, John Wyclif 
had denounced the Pope as "anti-Christ, the proud worldly 
priest of Rome, and the most cursed of clippers and purse- 
carvers ; " and in 1380 he entered upon the work of trans- 
lating the Bible. For these things Wyclif is sometimes 
called "the grandsire " of the English Reformation; and for 
teaching his doctrines Huss and Jerome of Prague were put 
to death by the Pope. 

The alarm which Rome felt. at the turn matters had taken 
in the early part of the sixteenth century is plainly seen by 
the course pursued at the Council of Trent in 1545. Yet 
Rome re-asserted in the later sessions of that council in 
155 1, some of her worst errors in most aggravated form, and 
insisted upon their being received under pain of anathema; 
but by that time England was free ! 

What was the English Reformation ? Our reply is twofold. 
It was, first, "the abolition of papal jurisdiction" over the 
realm and Church of England ; it was secondly, for this could 
come only after the other, the restoration of the primitive 



66 THE REFORMATION AGE. 

purity of doctrine, discipline, and worship. It was not the 
making of a new Church, for that is impossible. It was not 
a departure from the ancient Church, which would have been 
folly. Not a departure but a return. It occurred in the 
reign of Henry VIII. It has well been said that "the Church 
of England is in no way responsible for Henry VIII." It 
may well be added, that Henry VIII is in no way responsi- 
ble for that Church. 

He became King in 1509, at the age of 18. He died in 1547, 
"unwept, unhonoured and unsung," after a reign of 38 years. 
His character and conduct are condemned by an almost uni- 
versal verdict. I say almost, for I am aware that he has been 
defended by Froude. But the profligate life he led and all 
its unsavory details need not enter into the present discourse. 
"The Reformers based their work," says Hardwicke, "upon 
the principle that Christian nations, and consequently nation- 
al churches, do not owe allegiance, as a matter of Divine 
right, to any foreign potentate whatever;" "in the second 
place they secured the oneness of the Modern with the Med- 
iaeval Church of England, by preserving the continuity of 
its organization, by unbroken ties of holy orders, by innu- 
merable traditions of thought and sentiment, of faith, of feel- 
ing and of ritual, such especially as the Prayer Book has re- 
tained." "In the third place, the Reformers openly directed 
their appeal to the intelligence and reasoning powers no less 
than to the conscience of the individual churchman, affirm- 
ing the necessity of personal faith in God and personal fel- 
lowship with Christ;" "thus connecting a revival of religion 
with the growth of inteHectual freedom and the onward 
march of man and of society." 

But how did all this come about ? Free your minds from 



THE REFORMATION AGE. 67 

the notion that it happened by a single act, or in a short time. 
It was the growth of many years, the result of long, persis- 
tent, dogged determination. We have seen something of the 
long train of events which led to it, and of the long process 
of ripening thought which sought for an opportunity to speak. 
That opportunity came in the disjointed relations, the wide- 
ning breach between Henry VIII, King of England and the 
Roman Pontiff. Too great prominence has been given to the 
King's quarrel with the Pope on the subject of the divorce 
from Catharine of Aragon. That quarrel led to the culmina- 
tion of the King's rupture with the Papacy, but it was far 
from being all. Catharine was the widow of Henry's brother 
when he married her. It was not until 1533 that Archbishop 
Crammer, declared in face of the Pope's refusal to grant a 
divorce that the marriage had been invalid from the very 
first. Crammer's character is not above reproach by any 
means, as will be seen if you will take the trouble to read 
Strype's Memorials. And in this instance it may be doubted 
whether he acted judiciously or from a time-serving spirit of 
expediency. In many respects Crammer was one of the most 
influential men in giving shape to the earlier proceedings of 
the Reformation. The Pope, Clement VII, had angered the 
King by evasions and delays, and in 1529 postponed the case 
again. Cardinals Wolsey and Campeggio were the Pope's 
agents in this matter and from that time the downfall of 
Wolsey, the King's favourite and prime minister was of head- 
long rapidity. 

As early as 15 16 the King had asserted his own Royal 
Supremacy in the strongest language. But now he was fu- 
riously bent on making good his words. In 1530 he issued 
a proclamation forbidding the admission into the Kingdom of 



68 THE REFORMATION AGE. 

bulls from Rome. In 1 531 Convocation petitioned the King 
to declare that, if the Pope refused to release the Bishops 
from the duty of paying " annats " or first fruits, then " the 
obedience of him and the people be withdrawn from the see 
of Rome." Parliament accordingly "passed an Act ordain- 
ing that ' all payments of first fruits to the Court of Rome 
should be put down and forever restrained.' " 34 In 1532-3, 
an act was passed abolishing all appeals to Rome and provid- 
ing that "appeals shall lie from the archdeacon's court to the 
bishop's, and from the bishop's to the archbishop's, where 
final judgment shall be given." Of this enactment, Bishop 
Williams says: it "cut the tap-root of papal jurisdiction in 
England, nor, with the exception of the brief reign of Mary, 
has that jurisdiction ever been revived." The abolition of 
Peter's Pence and of Dispensations shortly followed. 

Thus the papal supremacy over England's Church was 
abolished. In its rejection we see the clergy in convocation 
taking the initiative steps; King and Parliament passing 
the needful enactments, as the constituted legislative power. 
Was England made a new Empire by thus casting off her 
galling subjection to the yoke of a foreign tyrant? I trow 
not ! No more was the Church of England, made a new 
Church when ihe work of reform was completed ! The 
one theory stands or falls with the other. Rome in England 
like Rome in America is always an alien ! Always an in- 
truder! England's Church is Catholic! 

The Church of England is sometimes said to have been 
"created by act of Parliament." It ought to be considered 
a sufficient answer to the charge to call attention to the facts 
which have just been recited; but if that is not enough it 
may be added that "she existed" as Bishop Williams says, 



THE REFORMATION AGE. 69 

"as the established Church of the Country hundreds of 
years before Parliament came into being." .... "The State 
never gave the Church its organization nor ordered its gov- 
ernment. It would be far more correct to say that the 
Church in England shaped the State." .... "The National 
Church grew up with the national life, side by side with the 
civil polity of the nation." In view of the present state of 
feeling toward the subject of disestablishment and the mon- 
strous proposition of disendowment, I may perhaps be jus- 
tified in quoting further from the Bishop of Connecticut. 
He says, and his words are susceptible of proof to the very 
letter, "The State never endowed the Church of England 
as a body. Cathedral churches and bishops' sees were en- 
dowed by individual gifts." .... "Parish churches, chapels, 
chantries and even monasteries were endowed in the same 
way." You can see then what a difference there is between 
disestablishment and disendowment. The former may be 
regarded as a justifiable separation between things of civil 
and things of Ecclesiastical relation. Some people think it 
would be a wise thing to disconnect the two if it could be 
done peaceably and with due regard to vested rights, so that 
the Church might stand or fall upon its. own merits, as in the 
United States. But for the State to disendow the Church, to 
take away the property which the Church never received from 
the State, would strike the unprejudiced mind as an act for- 
bidden by that ancient law which says, "Thou shalt not 
steal." 

In the year 1531, Henry VIII, undercover of a pretended 
desire to protect the clergy from Romish exactions assumed 
the title of "sole protector and supreme head of the Church." 
Much has been said and written about this, in seeming for- 



yO THE REFORMATION AGE. 

getfulness of the fact that the Convocation passed a resolu- 
tion at once to the effect that the title could only be accepted 
with the limiting condition of the words "so far as may be 
consistent with the law of Christ." This opposition brought 
the King to an explanation which should dismiss the subject 
forever. He said that he "meant no intrusion into the sacer- 
dotal functions. Only so far as spiritual things included 
property and justice, whatever power was necessary to pre- 
serve the peace of society was comprehended in the commis- 
sion borne by the supreme ruler." Do the courts of Massa- 
chusetts claim very much less than that ? Do we not live 
and enjoy the protection of our rights to "property and jus- 
tice " as parishes, and as dioceses, by the very same princi- 
ple ? We may now dismiss the subject of the Reformation 
so far as it relates to the Papal supremacy, having seen that 
the tyranny of Rome was cast aside, without breaking the 
historic continuity of the Church of England with the 
Church in all the ages that had elapsed. 

Two things yet remain to make the story of the Reforma- 
tion complete. One is the reform of doctrine by a return to 
the one true, pure and primitive faith of the gospel, as 
summed up in the Catholic Creed. The other is the reform 
of worship by a purification of the liturgical standards of the 
Church of England, especially the Book of Common Prayer. 
Next Sunday morning we shall treat of this last topic, in the 
concluding sermon of this series, on the History of the 
Prayer Book. A few words must be said to-day on the re- 
form of doctrine. 

Here again the work was gradual, not sudden. As early 
as 1536, the southern convocation issued a manifesto entitled 
" Articles to stablyshe christen quietnes and unitie amonge 



THE REFORMATION AGE. *]\ 

us, and to avoyd contentious opinions." The spirit of Medie- 
valism pervaded these ten articles, although they mentioned 
but three sacraments, instead of the seven which Rome still 
holds. Latimer preached a sermon at this time which shows 
that the intent of the articles was in the interest of doctrinal 
reform ; and in the course of that sermon he alluded to those 
" that begot and brought forth our old ancient purgatory pick- 
purse." In the next year a committee of prelates and di- 
vines put forth a work called the "Bishop's Book" or " In- 
stitution of a Christen Man." This was followed in 1543, by 
another book called " The Necessary Doctrine and Erudition 
for any Christian Man." Both these works marked a great 
advance in the line of reform in doctrine, and they relate to 
the Apostles' Creed, the Seven Sacraments,' the Ten Com- 
mandments, the Lord's Prayer, and the Ave Maria, the doc- 
trines of Justification and Purgatory. These three formularies 
marked the progress made in Henry's reign. 

In 1547, Edward VI was acknowledged King of England; 
at the age of nine years. On his accession the first book of 
Homilies was authorized to be read in churches every Sun- 
day, and the work was undertaken of expurgating the various 
service books of Sarum, Lincoln, York and Bangor, "so as 
to compile one i Use ' that should be in future the vehicle of 
worship to all members of the English Church." Arch- 
bishop Cranmer was the principal leader and director of 
these enterprises. They resulted in 1549 in what is known 
as the "First Prayer Book of Edward VI," which came into 
use in almost every parish of the realm. We shall spend 
more time on this important work next Sunday. 

About this time arose a multitude of zealous spirits, 
revolutionary in their views and eager in maintaining them. 



72 THE REFORMATION AGE. 

Some among them were Anabaptists ; some were followers 
of the extreme views of the Lollards of 1494, and others 
adopted the opinions of the Swiss reformers, especially those 
of Zwingli. They were the forerunners of the Puritans of 
later days, but they bore the general name of "Sacramen- 
taries." Soon the Prayer Book of Edward became the sub- 
ject of revision. John Knox and Calvin "represented in the 
strongest colours that the Service-Book, as it then stood was 
deeply penetrated by the taint of Popery." It was revised 
in 1552, and again revised in the reign of Elizabeth in 1559. 
A few changes were made in the reign of James I ; but sub- 
stantially, the Prayer Book we have used to-day is that of the 
Elizabethan age. I must mention very briefly the six arti- 
cles better known as "The Six Stringed Whip" which ap- 
peared in 1539 a fierce and bloody enactment, making little 
or no advance from papal doctrine. But in 1552 appeared 
the Forty-two Articles, which after ten years w r ere modified 
and reduced to the present thirty-nine of the Prayer Book. 
These have sometimes been called Calvinistic ; often they 
have been derided. But no one who knows their history or 
understands their theology will be guilty of casting aspersions 
upon a body of doctrinal statements which, considering the 
times in which they were framed, are so well worthy of the 
place they occupy. I would gladly spend a little time in trac- 
ing the thread of this history down to the present day. I wish 
I had time to tell the rise of Congregationalism, Methodism, 
Socinianism or Unitarianism, the Baptists, and Quakers, and 
to give some account of the distinctive tenets of each. Puri- 
tanism had the mighty conception of purity behind it; but it 
revived the ancient heresy of the Novatians, and drew a line of 
demarcation between the visible and the invisible Church ; 



THE REFORMATION AGE. 73 

whereas the Bible has nothing to say of an invisible Church 
from beginning to end. The height of fanaticism was 
reached in the days of Elizabeth, and in those of Cromwell, 35 
when puritans mocked the Holy Communion, (I will omit the 
revolting particulars, all which can be found in the histories,) 
and stabled their horses in the Cathedrals. It was a time 
when it could be said with grim humor, that, " religion was 
so thoroughly reformed that even the horses went to church." 
But those days of witch burning and window breaking are 
gone. There was wrong on all sides. The multiplication of 
sects by the law of sub-division has been enormous. To tell 
their history minutely would be of interest and of service. 
But the time is not long enough for that. All of these de- 
nominations hold certain doctrines in common with the 
Church. All their adherents who are baptized, are thereby 
members of the one Church of all the ages. Like the Lu- 
theran and Presbyterian movements, they enter the stage of 
Christian history during, or after the Reformation. I do 
not deny that there was apathy and indifference and cruelty 
in the English Church, which were efficient causes in pro- 
moting their growth. Each sect has had its saints and its 
sinners. They all reject the threefold ministry which we 
have received, and deny the historic continuity of the 
Church, in that three-fold order. In doctrine and in worship 
also there is every shade and degree of different opinions. 
That is how the matter stands to-day. God grant the time 
may speedily come when all Christians shall be visibly united, 
as at the first they were ! We cannot repudiate the princi- 
ples for which our forefathers, the leaders in the English 
Reformation, went to the stake. We do repudiate the here- 
sies and abominable corruptions of the Papacy, whose later 



74 THE HISTORY, STRUCTURE AND USE 

growth, under Jesuit control has been a growth in error. 
We owe nothing to Romanism but to love her deluded 
children and to pray for her return to the Catholic Faith and 
Order. But the only ground on which the claims of Rome 
can be successfully answered is that of the historic Church. 

A voice went forth in Reformation days, heard in the con- 
sciences and obeyed in the actions .of Bishops and other 
Clergy. That voice did not say, "Make a new Israel," or 
"Organize a new Judah," but even the same as the God of 
Israel spake in the days of old, " Amend your ways and 
your doings, and I will cause you to dwell in this place." 
The voice was obeyed, and the promise was fulfilled ! 



VI. 

THE HISTORY, STRUCTURE AND USE OF THE 
BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER. 



"Let all things be done decently and in order." — 

I Cor. xiv: 40. 

"Hold fast the form of sound words, which thou hast heard 
of rne } in faith and love which is in Christ Jesus."- — II Tim. 1:13. 

Fully nine-tenths of the Prayer Book came bodily from 
the Bible, and the other tenth is a flower of devotion, whose 
seed is in the Bible. All the Psalter, in that pure and mu- 
sical translation of Miles Coverdale (1539,) seventy years 
older than the King James version ; all the Epistles and Gos- 



OF THE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER. 75 

pels for Sundays, Festivals and Fasts ; all the Canticles of 
Morning and Evening Prayer ; all the Lessons, which, in 
orderly manner bring to your hearts the due analogy and 
proportion of Old and New Testaments ; the Lord's Prayer, 
which enters into every stated and occasional Office ; the 
Ten Commandments, which are rehearsed every Sunday ; 
the "Comfortable Words," in the Communion Office; the 
Offertory Sentences : the Sentences with which the public 
worship begins, and the Benediction of Peace with which it 
ends — all these are from the Bible. Twelve chapters of 
Holy Scripture make up the average quota for every appoint- 
ed day of public worship. The Offices for Baptism, Cate- 
chism, Confirmation, Holy Matrimony, Visitation of the 
Sick, Burial of the Dead, Churching of Women, Forms of 
Prayer to be used at Sea, Visitation of Prisoners, Thanks- 
giving, Family Prayer, Thirty-nine Articles, and Ordination, 
are all saturated with the very language and spirit of Holy 
Scripture, — and yet there are not wanting some people, who 
still being blind to the Scriptural glory of our Book of Com- 
mon Prayer, seek for a more Scriptural service. There is 
no service of man, that ever was devised for the wor- 
ship of God, so packed full with the treasures of the In- 
spired Word ! Precomposed forms of prayer find their 
,sufficient warrant in the words of the Master : " If two of 
you shall agree on earth as touching anything they shall ask, 
it shall be done for them of my Father which is in Heaven." 
In contrasting the services of the Prayer Book with extem- 
poraneous worship, lest I may seem to speak from prejudice, 
I beg to quote from one who, being a Presbyterian minister, 
may justly be supposed to speak from experience. At the 
" Congress of Churches" held last May, in the city of Hart- 



^6 THE HISTORY, STRUCTURE AND USE 

ford, Conn., the Rev. Samuel Hopkins, D. D., a Professor in 
the Presbyterian Theological Seminary, at Auburn, N. Y., 
spoke as follows : '■ It is the glory and beauty of secret 
devotion, that the worshipper enters into his closet, and there 
communes in the simple language of a child — -the simpler the 
better, — with his Father who sees in secret ; telling though 
it were in broken sobs, the whole story of his weaknesses 
and his wants. But public prayer is ' common prayer,' and 
ought to express, in grave, dignified phrase, the common 
wants of the entire congregation. Trivial phrases and 
broken utterances are here out of place. The result is that 
the people are left to be practiced on by beginners who halt 
and stammer in the alphabet of prayer, and only after some 
years ' experience rise to anything like the ease and dignity 
proper to such a service. For this inconvenience, the use 
of judicious forms presents a remedy. The congregation min- 
istered to by the poorest young deacon with a Prayer Book 
in his hand, fares as well as the flock gathered in any 'St. 
Thomas's ' or in any ■ Trinity.' " 

Pardon me for yielding to the temptation to hear a little 
more from Dr. Hopkins. Speaking of the objections to ex- 
temporaneous public worship, he continues : the minister 
"has been trained in the seminary to think that the sermon 
is the great essential element in public worship, and to lay 
out his whole strength upon it. As for prayer, he has been 
practiced in 'that exercise, (!) during years of prayer-meeting 
experience, and always has the common place topics and 
phrases at his tongue's end. He must take many hours of 
hard work to prepare what he has to say to his fellow sinners. 
What he has to say to God he can leave to memory, habit, 
and the inspiration of the moment. He can get through 



OF THE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER. *]*] 

with it in some way or other. Generally it is a trial to him 
— at least to the beginner. To him, at least, it is not a de- 
votional exercise. It is a rhetorical exercise. He has to 
invent as he goes along ; to tax his memory ; to select his 
phraseology ; to think whether he has included all the proper 
topics ; or if he has forgotten anything, to go back and pick 
up ; . . . and all the time, to keep his mind's eye on the 
clock ; so as neither much to exceed, nor much to fall short 
of, the conventional twelve or fifteen minutes. The effect of 
this sort of intellectual praying, on the mind of the minister 
himself, cannot but be unhappy. He is really starving his 
own soul for the sake of his people. The long prayer ex- 
hausts him more than the sermon. He is as glad to be done 
with it, as the people are to have him. 

"The influence of this method upon the people is no less 
unhappy. They are expected to take no oral part in the ser- 
vice whatever; not even to utter the Apostolic "Amen" at 
the end of the prayer. They are to take the prayer as the 
preacher deals it out to them, sentence by sentence, and ab- 
sorb it if they can, and turn it into subjective devotion. 
Whether they do so or not, nobody knows." (Extemporane- 
ous worship is extremely " Romish," in thus taking the peo- 
ple's part away.) 

" The congregation sit mute as fishes through the whole, 
scarce joining at all even in the singing. They are not de- 
sired to sing. They are not invited to repeat the Lord's 
Prayer. They take part in no responsive reading of the 
Scriptures. They have no litany, to whose passionate ex- 
claims they can offer their response. The minister at one 
end, and the quartette at the other, do all the vocal part of 



y8 THE HISTORY, STRUCTURE AND USE 

the service. To supply the want of worship by musical ef- 
fects, the organ thunders in long drawn voluntaries. A high- 
priced soprano warbles unintelligible strains of something. 
A violin solo carries the minds of the younger sisters irresis- 
tibly away to the ball room or the concert-hall ; or a brass 
band stirs the enthusiasm of the boys to a pitch not much 
below that occasioned by the entrance of a circus. 
I ask, sadly, is there not something better than this ?" 
Without offering any comment whatever upon these words, 
so full of the sad confession of the weariness and weakness 
of a worship to which I am thankful to be a stranger, I ask 
your attention to a brief outline of the history and structure 
of the Book of Common Prayer. As was said in a former 
sermon of this series, the Prayer Book services grew out of 
the Synagogue worship to which our Saviour lent the sanc- 
tion of His own constant daily attendance. Strictly speak- 
ing this applies to the order of Morning and Evening Prayer 
only. The Communion Office technically called the Liturgy, 
and other Christian Offices, as Baptism, of necessity came in 
with the Gospel, the words of the institution and the form- 
ula of Baptism, supplying the framework. 

" From the Synagogue came the first use of fixed forms of 
prayer. 36 To that the first disciples had been accustomed 
from their youth. They had asked their Master to give them 
a distinctive one, and He had complied with their request, as 
the Baptist had done before for his disciples, as every Rabbi 
did for his. . . To their minds there would seem nothing 
inconsistent with true heart worship in the recurrence of a 
fixed order, of the same prayers, hymns, doxologies, such as 
all liturgical study leads us to think of as existing in the 
Apostolic Age. . . ' Moses ' was ' read in the Synagogues 



OF THE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER. 79 

every Sabbath-day,' 37 the whole law being read consecutively, 
so as to be completed, according to one cycle, in three years, 
according to that which ultimately prevailed and determined 
the existing divisions of the Hebrew text in the 52 weeks of 
a single year. The writings of the Prophets were read as 
second lessons in a corresponding order. They were followed 
by the Derash, 'the word of exhortation ' 38 the exposition, the 
sermon of the Synagogue." These are the elements which 
make up the Order of our Daily Morning and Evening Prayer, 
with the addition, of course, of the New Testament Scriptures. 

The disciples came together to break bread on the first day 
of the wdek. The weekly celebration of the Holy Commun- 
ion is a custom of apostolic origin, testifying to that spiritual 
perception of "the eternal fitness of things," which linked to- 
gether the Lord's Supper and the Lord's Day, in a constant 
witness of the Resurrection of Christ and the risen life of 
His disciples. 

Four among all the great number of ancient Liturgies, ap- 
peared in the apostolic age, as follows : The liturgy of St. 
James, used at Jerusalem ; the liturgy of St. Mark used at 
Alexandria ; the liturgy of St. Peter, used at Rome ; and the 
liturgy of St John, used at Ephesus. In I Cor. ii : 9, St. 
Paul says, "It is written, eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, 
neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which 
God hath prepared for them that love him." There are a 
great many other places in the New Testament where the 
words occur "it is written." Now you will look in vain for 
any place in the Old Testament where the duplicates of some 
of these passages are found, but the words I have quoted to 
you are the exact words of the Liturgy of St. James. Very 
early, too early for the light of history to disclose the origin of 



80 THE HISTORY, STRUCTURE AND USE 

it, appeared the Apostles' Creed, doubtless a protest against 
the Gnostic heresy, as the Nicene Creed against the Arians. 

The charge is sometimes ignorantly made that the Prayer 
Book was derived from Romish sources. It gives me great 
satisfaction to demolish that charge at a single blow. The 
Prayer Book of the Church of England, of which our own is 
substantially a copy, was derived from the Mozarabic or Gal- 
lican Liturgy which came, not from the Roman but from the 
Ephesian Liturgy of St. John. Our Morning and Evening 
Prayer were modelled upon the Ancient " Use " of Sarum. 
The Sarum Use was " based on the Anglo Saxon and Nor- 
man customs, particularly that of Rouen, and put forth by S. 
Osmund, A. D. 1087 as a means of reducing the different 
customs of his diocese, to something like order. It gradu- 
ally was adopted by other dioceses, and Hereford and York 
based their missals upon it." 39 

True there are in the Roman Breviary many prayers like 
those we have. They came down from the pure and saintly 
men whose devotional thought with constant enrichment, 
crystallized around the original nucleus. In the four Apos- 
tolic Liturgies, there is a similarity of construction which in- 
dicates a common source. To the framers of the Prayer Book 
in Reformation days, the vast store -house of the ancient lit- 
urgies were open. It is cause of devout thankfulness that 
they were enabled to make such use of their materials as to 
produce a service book which to-day stands peerless in the 
estimation of all high Christian scholarship. That scholar- 
ship is voiced by the Rev. Prof. Shields, of Princeton Univer- 
sity, a Presbyterian minister, who said in "The Century 
Magazine" of last November. "The English Liturgy next 
to the English Bible, is the most wonderful product of the 



OF THE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER. 8 1 

Reformation. The very fortunes of the book are the ro- 
mance of history. As we trace its development, its rubrics 
seem dyed in the blood of martyrs ; its offices echo with po- 
lemic phrases ; its canticles mingle with the battle-cries of 
armed sects and factions ; and its successive revisions mark 
the career of dynasties, states and* churches. . . It is not 
too much to say that were the problem given, to frame out of 
the imperfectly organized and sectarian Christianity of our 
times a liturgical model for the communion of saints in the 
one universal Church, the result might be expressed in some 
such compilation as the English Book of Common Prayer." 
These words are as wholesome and refreshing as they are 
welcome. 

The First Book of Edward was mentioned last Sunday, as 
the attempt to unite all the various " Uses " into one. That 
work, though it marked a great advance, was tentative. It 
was framed in a time of transition. It retained the Roman 
name of the Mass for the Holy Communion, Auricular Con- 
Confession, Prayers for the dead, and was in general use 
for only a short time. Its laws and its customs are not 
the present obligation of the Church of England. The 
revisions which followed, and brought it to its present shape 
have also been mentioned. How far removed the Prayer 
Book of Queen Elizabeth is from Romanism, in the charac- 
ter of its worship, as well as in the sources whence it came 
may be seen by a brief quotation from a book called the 
" Raccolta," a collection of prayers " specially indulgenced 
by the Popes, and therefore of indisputable authority in the 
Roman Church." 40 I crave your pardon for reading words 
so profane, but it is my aim that no room shall be left for the 
ignorant prejudice which still fears to take and use this herit- 



82 THE HISTORY, STRUCTURE AND USE 

age of the faithful. The words to which I ask your attention 
are these : " I acknowledge thee, and I venerate thee most 
Holy Virgin, Queen of Heaven, Lady and Mistress of the 
Universe, as Daughter of the Eternal Father, Mother of his 
well-beloved Son, and most loving Spouse of the Holy Spirit. 
Kneeling at the feet of thy great Majesty, with all humility I 
pray thee through that Divine charity wherewith thou wast 
so bounteously enriched on thine assumption into heaven, to 
vouchsafe me favour and pity." Roman books of devotion 
are filled with such "prayers" as that. But where, from be- 
ginning to end of the Book of Common Prayer can the faint- 
est approach to such blasphemy be found ? The chains of 
Babylonish bondage to Rome were forever broken by the work 
of the Reformation. In the days of King James I, the 
puritan ministers presented what is known as the Millenary 
Petition. It was a petition for certain changes of small con- 
sequence in the Prayer Book. King James was a monarch 
whose self-conceit was large in the inverse ratio of his Kingly 
qualities. 41 At the Hampton Court Conference in 1604, this 
petition was discussed in the presence of James, who acted 
as moderator. The petitions were many of them granted, but 
in so contemptuous a fashion as to make the story not a pleas- 
ant one for Churchmen to read. The Savoy Conference, in 
1 66 1, considered the petition of the Presbyterians for many 
important changes in the Prayer Book. But very few of these 
alterations were made, and those which were made did not 
affect the distinctive features of the Book. 

In regard to the structure and use of the Prayer Book, I 
must say but a few words. The aim of the Book is to pre- 
sent a vehicle of public worship, as nearly as possible, after 
the principles of the Holy Scripture ; a book of devotions 



OF THE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER. 83 

which shall secure the rights of the clergy and laity alike as 
members of "the royal priesthood," . . " to offer up spiritual sac- 
rifices of praise and thanksgiving." With what minute and 
scrupulous fidelity this principle has been observed in the 
framing of the Book, I may best illustrate by quoting the 
quaint words of Wheatley. Speaking of the place where the 
Creed comes, in Morning and Evening Prayer, he says : "That 
which goes before it are the Lessons taken out of the word 
of God ; for faith comes by hearing ; and therefore when we 
have heard God's word, it is fit we should profess our belief 
in it, thereby setting our seals (as it were) to the truth of God. 
.... What follows the creed are the prayers which are ground- 
ed upon it ; for we cannot call on him in whom we have not be- 
lieved" 

As to the postures, which some people seem to find so 
troublesome, they all accord with the act in which we en- 
gage. Three elements enter into our public worship : prayer, 
praise and instruction. Three postures are observed, and all 
are founded upon the teaching of the Bible— kneeling, stand- 
ing and sitting. We kneel (or ought to) when* we pray, be- 
cause Jesus knelt. We stand before our Sovereign when we 
offer praise, because that is the attitude of those who stand 
about the great white throne in heaven ; and we sit during 
the Lessons and sermon, because it is the position most fa- 
vourable for listening. We stand also during the Creed, "to 
signify" as Wheatley says, "our resolution to stand up stoutly 
in its defence." We bow at the name of Jesus Christ, for at 
His name all knees shall bow. We are directed to stand 
when the Gospel for the day is announced, and when it is 
read ; to indicate that while the Epistle is the writing of an 
inspired man, the Gospel is the record of words or deeds of 



84 THE HISTORY, STRUCTURE AND USE 

our Saviour. But is not all this very formal ? I think I hear 
some one ask. I answer, Yes ; but what says the apostle ? 
"Let all things be done decently and in order." And as for 
sincerity in the use of these forms, I beg to submit the words 
of the Rev. Prof. Phelps, a Congregational minister in the An- 
dover Seminary. He says : "Will not the use of forms degen- 
erate into nothing but form ? Always possibly ; never neces- 
sarily. I seriously question whether such repetition induces 
any more formality than the silent attempt of listeners to fol- 
low the impromptu thought of a leader of extemporaneous 
prayer. Prayer impromptu may be the superior to the lead- 
er ; but, to the hearer, the following is a difficult and compli- 
cated act. Such prayer to the hearer is a series of surprises." 
(It should be remarked that Prof. Phelps in speaking of the 
"hearer" of prayer is not referring to God but to the audience 
assembled to listen in meeting.) "It requires a quick mind 
to follow it with no loss of devotional sincerity. To children 
it is commonly a dead loss of time. They do not participate 
in it, and are not reverently interested in it. During the first 
fifteen years of a child's life, the public devotions of our 
churches are generally a blank." 42 

Such a frank confession of the inadequacy and insincerity of 
extemporaneous worship, coming from one who speaks from 
experience, is melancholy. But is it not taught in many 
quarters that children are not members of the Church ? Why 
should they be interested in what does not belong to them ? 
Such was not the teaching of our blessed Saviour, who said, 
"Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them 
not ; for of such is the kingdom of heaven." And as for "lis- 
tening" to ministers pray, it seems a. curious thing to us;'but 
what that listening means in many cases may be inferred 



OF THE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER. 85 

from the frequent remark, "Mr. So-and-So is eloquent or 
gifted in prayer." What does that mean ? It means that 
the people who say it have been criticizing instead of praying ! 
It never can be said where the Prayer Book is used. And as 
to the reverence which the Prayer Book inculcates, let me 
again quote from Prof. Phelps. He says : "No other branch 
of the Church universal has so lofty an ideal as the Church of 
England and its off-shoot in this country. In all the liturgic 
literature of our language, nothing equals the Anglican Lit- 
urgy. Its variety of thought, its spiritual pathos, its choice 
selection of the most vital themes of prayer, its reverent im- 
portunity, its theological orthodoxy and its exquisite proprie- 
ty of style, will commend it to the hearts of devout worship- 
pers of many generations to come, as they have done to gen- 
erations past." ..." Grant that Episcopal usage sometimes 
crowds its churchly reverence to an extreme ; but is not that 
a safer extreme than ours ? . . . The educating influence of this 
sentiment on children of the church is of untold value." 
"We have something yet to learn of the rudiments of bibli- 
cal worship. Our Episcopal brethren are farther advanced 
than we in this line of Christian culture." I could not have 
written those last words myself, but since the Bible says, 
"Let another man praise thee, and not thine own mouth," I 
may be pardoned for quoting them. 

I must now draw this course of sermons to a close. I know 
I do so at the peril of leaving many things unsaid. I have 
not touched upon the Christian Year, and the Saints' Days, 
and that weekly Fast on Friday which Christians have kept 
from a date almost as early as that of Sunday, in sorrowful 
commemoration of the day of crucifixion. There are a mul- 
titude of topics which must be passed by in discourses so 



86 THE HISTORY, STRUCTURE AND USE 

limited as these, but the problem has been all along how to 
condense the material at hand, and tell the story in the spirit 
of love to all who love our Lord Jesus Christ. I have but 
a few words to add to what has been said. 

You have been baptized. Into what ? A sect ? No ! Into 
the body of Christ, the Church of the living God. You are 
asked to be confirmed and many of you have been confirmed. 
Why ? Because that is the way we have of "professing re- 
ligion"? We never "profess religion," nor does that phrase 
come from the Bible. We confess the need of religion and 
the desire to live a godly life. Confirmation was one of ' the 
Bible ways of confessing Christ before men at the very be- 
ginning, and in it is asked and received a gift of the seven- 
fold spirit of God ; a gift which every Christian ought to seek, 
a confession which every disciple ought to make. You are 
invited to the Holy Communion. Why ? Because of those 
words of the Master in which He commanded, "Do this, in re- 
membrance of me." Your Christian Baptism entitles you 
to come. 

From the days of our weakest infancy the Church leads us 
by the hand, a loving Mother, on to the days of our weak and 
infirm old age, when she lays us tenderly at rest. She calls 
the little children to baptism and instruction, and blesses the 
young men and maidens in confirmation. She speaks the 
solemn and beautiful words that bind the lives of husband 
and wife together until death. She ministers, through her 
visitation office, at the bedside of suffering ; and fills the 
weak and weary heart with patience. She speaks above the 
grave where finally our hands and feet find repose, the words 
of Resurrection and of life. She leads us ever beside the 
still waters, and notes no distinction between high and 



OF THE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER. 8? 

low, rich and poor, — all her children are alike to hen A 
thousand leagues of land and sea may stretch between us and 
our kin ; wherever the wanderer's foot may tarry, there the 
Church with sweet and holy office knits anew the parted 
bonds, and families are one again, in the dear familiar words 
of common prayer and praise. 

"Though sundered far, by faith they meet 
Around one common mercy seat." 

And if from out their resting places beneath the stones that 

stand like mute sentinels around this hallowed spot, could 

come the forms of those who once were worshippers here, 

the loved "not lost but gone before," could they tell us of 

that celestial country where white-robed choirs in heavenly 

strains uplift the eternal song, would they not rejoice with 

us in "holding fast the form of sound words," words which 

were their own and still are our blessed comfort, and the 

song of our pilgrimage ? 

"We are .travelling home to God, 
In the way the fathers trod." 

The love we bear for the Church of the living God, deep, 
unfaltering, unalterable love, has its example in the love of 
Jesus Christ, who not only "loved the Church," but "gave 
himself for it." Oh, shall we not also give ourselves to it, 
and for it, in a new consecration to its glorious work, and a 
more reverent heed to all those invitations which the Church 
so constantly utters ? Shall we not do all that in us lies to 
extend its privileges to them that are as yet unfamiliar 
with that magnificent thought which bursts from heart and 
lips when we say, "I believe one Catholic and Apostolic 
Church !" Her foundations are in the holy mountains of a 
remote and primitive antiquity. Her witness is for the ever- 
lasting truth. 



88 NOTES. 

I shall conjure with a potent spell, when, in closing, I 
quote the words of your former well-beloved Rector, the Rev. 
Dr. Washburn. His was a grand conception of the Church ; 
no human words it seems to me, can more fitly tell her mis- 
sion and her character. And while "he being dead, yet speak- 
eth," we may well listen in reverent silence. He says : "Be 
this undivided Christ ours, brethren and friends ! May He 
grant that we prize our creed, our worship, as not fetters to 
bind, or jewels to hoard, but gifts to share. May we each 
feel that we belong to no denomination, but to the Church 
which is for all the children of one Father and followers of 
one Master, which repeats one truth of redemption, seals on 
all one calling, opens to all one communion. May we in this 
time of waiting hearts labour for that unity ; and as the scaf- 
folding falls from the outside of the building when the work 
nears its end, see in the decay of human systems the grandeur 
of the temple itself, the walls and crowning towers of Thine 
eternal city, O my God and my Lord." 43 

NOTES. 

Note. — I have made no references in these sermons to the Apostolical 
Constitutions, because of the doubts existing as to their genuineness. The 
argument seems sufficiently strong without them. 

1. See Revised Version. 

2. Acts viii: 5. 

3. Acts xvi: 4, 5. 

4. Acts xiv : 23. 

5. Chapter i: 5. 

6. Blunt, Key to Church History, (ancient) p. 61. 

7. Epistle 96. 

8. All these quotations are taken from "The Apostolic Fathers," 
translated by Jackson, and edited by Prof. Fisher. 



NOTES. 89 

9. Vol III. p. 357. T & T. Clark. 

10. Stromata, p. 366. 

11. Bk. Ill : Chap. 37. 

12. I am indebted for the names given here from Eusebius, to the re- 
searches of the Rev. J. J. Blunt, B. D., "History of Christian Church, 
first three Centuries," though I have, in part, verified the lists. 

13. Book III. Chapter 3. "Against Heresies." 

14. Ibidem. 

15. Preface to the Ordinal. 

16. Robertson. 

17. Eusebius, Eccl. Hist., Bk. x. chap. 4. 

18. Robertson : Church History, Vol. II, p. 48, ff. 

19. Robertson, Vol. II : p. 221. 

20. Gal. il: 11. 

21. Page 261, T. & T. Clark's edition. 

22. See Bishop Wordsworth's St. Hyppolytus and the Church of Rome 
Chapter xii. 

23. Wordsworth. 

24. Robertson Vol. II. page 238. 

25. Epistle v. 20. 

26. Epistle viii. 30. 

27. Mediaeval Church History, page 157. 

28. Page 160. 

29. Bp. Williams's Eng. Ref . p. 35. 

30. Ibid. 

31. Bp. Randall's, Why I am a Churchman, p. 95. 

32. Clement's Epistle to the Corinthians. § 5. 

33. Hardwicke's Beformation. 

34. Bishop Williams. 

35. See Curteis' Dissent in its Rel. to Ch. of Eng. 

36. Smith's Diet. Bible. 

37. Acts xv : 21. 

38. Actsxiii: 15. 

39. Shipley's Glossary of Eccl. Terms. 

40. Littledale's Plain Reasons, 30. 

41. It is he, I think, of whom it was said, or might have been, that 
" He never spoke of himself without lifting his hat." 

42. My Study, page 280. 

43. Sermon, Christ and Sect. p. 23. 



